Fear is in the Eye of the Dragon I: Brave Hearts
by Frostforge44
Summary: After a traumatic experience, Tori Korrinston has been struck with an extreme fear of dragons. With the battle with the dragons over with, life has never been harder for her. So, Hiccup takes it upon himself to take her under his wing and show her that the winged beasts aren't as beastly as she thinks. Easy enough to do? Not even close. NEW DRAGON TO REPLACE WINTER! PLEASE READ CH3
1. Lesson 1: To Touch a Dragon

**Hello, hello! Well, first of all, I'm Frosty. I'm really glad to start a fanfic for one of my favorite movies of all time! I hope that you guys like the first chapter. I know it's a bit all over the place, but I promise it will get better. **

**Anyway, I'm hoping to get positive feedback at best and some constructive criticism at worst. Before anyone can ask, the line in italics at the beginning is the sort of message narrated by Hiccup. That's just something I think he would say. I can't guarantee that there'll be a whole lot more, but I can say that there will be at least two more throughout the story and a final message on the final chapter.**

**So, without further ado, I don't own HTTYD (though it would be so cool if I did!). I only own my OC, Tori Korrinston, and her parents. I hope you enjoy it!**

_"__Change. It's probably the scariest and most inevitable thing in the world. Nobody knows why it happens and nothing can ever stop it from happening. Heck, not many people are ever even prepared for it. The only thing you can really do is to try to adapt to it. Of course, it's easier said than done…"_

* * *

"Great flight today, Toothless," Hiccup smiled, stroking Toothless' neck as they landed into the village. "What do ya say we get something to eat, huh?"

Toothless purred, grumbling in his throat in approval. Hiccup nodded as he got off, patting the dragons head as he peered around the village, "I think that Tori should be back with the fish by now…"

The Night Fury's ear plates perked at the call of a yak, one pulling the fish wagon with Tori Korrinston at the reins. She was a rather thin and frail girl, pale and scrawny, much like Hiccup himself. It was hard to tell what emotion her face held, mainly because it was hidden by her long, black bangs and a fur-lined hood that she always kept up. She was also hardly dressed for a fight, again like Hiccup, and wore only dark violet and brown wool and cotton clothing.

"Hey, Tori!"

Tori squeaked a bit, startling both herself and the yak when she yanked on the reins and made him come to a stop. She breathed heavily as she brushed her raven-colored bangs back and got herself settled down.

"Oh, h-hey, Hiccup…" she greeted with a shy smile. Her head turned away slightly at the sight of Toothless as she quietly added, "I've got your order of salmon and cod right here in the front…"

Toothless gave out a pleased growl before climbing up onto the wagon. Tori gasped and pushed herself back as the Night Fury came closer and closer to her while trying to open the baskets full of fish.

"Whoa, bud! Slow down!" Hiccup pulled down on his saddle, but the dragon was more than eager to get some of the fish. He climbed up further, finally managing to get one of the basket lids open and began eating away. Tori yelped as she fell off the wagon, grunting as she fell face-down on the ground.

"Sorry, Tori," Hiccup apologized, helping the Viking girl to her feet. "Toothless gets a little…excited with salmon and cod."

Tori nervously brushed the dirt off of her, "It's okay, Hiccup. I know he didn't mean any harm."

Turning back to the wagon, Toothless was lying on top of the wagon with his green eyes lazily shut and his belly full. The boy rubbed the back of his neck as he commented, "Uh…I'll pay for any extra fish that Toothless ate."

"It's fine. I actually had a few extra pounds of fish I needed to get rid of, anyway," Tori shrugged faintly, rubbing her arm as she tried her best to curb her anxiety. Finally, she let her arm fall to her side as she muttered, "Well, I should get this to my father and get back to my chores. I'll see you later…"

"Yeah. Bye," Hiccup awkwardly waved as Toothless climbed off the wagon. Tori settled into her spot and commanded the yak to continue, which it did with a grunt. When she was just out of earshot, he shook his head a bit as he commented, "Still as shy as usual…and still as afraid of dragons as usual."

Toothless garbled a bit as he looked at his companion before looking at the fishing teen. He cocked his head a bit, curious as to why Tori was so frightened of him and the others. They never lifted a threatening wing or paw at her since they settled down, so why was she so afraid?

Hiccup sighed, patting Toothless on the snout, "Maybe that's something we can work on next…"

* * *

Later on that evening, Hiccup was slumped in his chair, reading over the defense drills that were to be ran tomorrow. Toothless was comfortably curled up nearby, snoring softly as he napped.

Stoick, who stopped running the sharpening stone on his axe, sighed heavily, causing Hiccup to hang his head. When his father sighed like that, he knew it meant something important to say. And not everything that was important was always pleasant to talk about.

"Hiccup," he started, making his son lift his head in acknowledgement. "I know you don't particularly like the idea, but this is important."

_Yup. Important. Called it_, Hiccup thought semi-triumphantly.

"I know, Dad," the dragon trainer gave out a sigh of his own. "I can't be head of the Dragon Academy _and _be chief."

"Precisely," Stoick nodded, continuing to sharpen his weapon. "That's why I think you should choose one of the other teenagers as an apprentice. Teach'em everything they'll need to know to keep teaching at the academy."

Hiccup rolled his eyes, but then suddenly perked up as he asked, "So…that would mean that I would, hypothetically, have my apprentice close with the dragons? Teach them everything we know about dragons?"

"Exactly."

"And, again hypothetically, would my apprentice need to get a dragon of her, or his, own?" Hiccup asked, suddenly getting up from his seat.

"Yes, that's what I-" Stoick suddenly stopped, setting down his axe before looking towards his son with a suspicious look, "Hiccup, I have a feeling that all of these 'hypothetical' questions aren't that hypothetical. What do you have in mind?"

* * *

"Ye want me daughter te do WHAT?!"

"Agmund, please!" Verna, wife of Agmund and mother of Tori Korrinston, hushed gently. Honestly, it was a wonder that Tori wasn't down the stairs asking what all the fuss was about.

"Please, Agmund. I really think that this would be really good for Tori," Hiccup explained, only he and his father present. He had left Toothless outside in the event that Tori had been in the room, but now he could always set this up as a surprise. "It's one thing to be scared of dragons, but she can't go on the rest of her life in fear of them."

Stoick decided that now would be an excellent time to cut in, "Agmund, as much as you're against this and as much as Tori means to you, I have to agree with my son. I can assure you that your daughter will be in safe, capable hands."

Hiccup couldn't help but smile a bit, proud of himself that he had gained his father's confidence.

"She _is _in capable hands, isn't she, Hiccup?" Stoick turned back to his son with a raised eyebrow.

And then that pride went right down the drain. His shoulder's slumped before he gave Verna and Agmund a good-natured grin, "Of course. And, just for emotional support, we'll do everything one little baby step at a time. I swear, you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

Agmund turned away slightly, his head slightly down in thought. Hiccup gave his father a sideways glance, almost as if asking silently, _Think I got through to him?_

After a long moment of silence, Agmund looked back with a sternness in his tone, "Fine. If it'll be better for her, I'll allow it. But listen closely, Hiccup, if I get one whiff or one word of trouble, I don' want ye ever comin' near her again. Is that understood?"

Agmund was one of the few Vikings who was classified as "being in the middle" when it came to size, so Hiccup wasn't necessarily intimidated by his size. However, he could tell by his glare and tone that he was serious through and through.

"Thanks, Agmund. I swear when I'm done with Tori, you won't even recognize her."

When the parents gave him a bit of a harsh look, he backtracked and corrected, "I mean…you won't be disappointed. I'll swing by and bring her by the academy when she gets back from fishing tomorrow."

Agmund nodded stiffly, "Very well. Remember, I've got me eye on you."

Hiccup smiled in triumph, happy enough to get this far. Now all he had to do was get Tori to the academy and get started on her training. Shouldn't be too hard…

* * *

"What do you mean you're bringing Tori to the academy?" Astrid asked incredulously as her friend paced back and forth. "You do remember why she hasn't come around here before, right?"

"I know, Astrid. She's terrified of dragons. And that's why we need to be as gentle as possible when she gets here. The twins should be back with her any minute."

Astrid, Fishlegs, and Snotlout looked to him with unbelievable looks, "You tell us to be _sensitive_, yet you sent the _twins_ to get her?"

"Yeah, even _I'm _not stupid enough to do that," Snotlout smirked.

Hiccup stopped, shrugging sheepishly as he said, "Yeah, not my best idea, but if she can handle the twins, she should be able to at least handle some dragons."

Fishlegs mulled it over, and then shrugged as well, "True. Very true."

At that moment, the teenagers turned to the entrance as they heard the flapping of wings. Barf and Belch zoomed in, with their riders upon their necks and a shivering, dark violet mass hanging from Barf's jaws.

"GUYS! What are you doing?! Put Tori down!" Hiccup exclaimed. "I told you guys not to use your dragon!"

"Yeah, well it's not like we had much of a choice," Tuffnut explained, leaning casually on Belch's head as Barf lowered Tori to the ground. "We tried asking her to come with us, but then she ran away."

Hiccup's shoulders slumped dramatically and a slight scowl formed on his face as he stated, "And you have no idea why she might've done that?"

"Nope," Ruffnut shook her head, nudging Barf to release Tori. "Besides, you told us to get her here, and we did."

The second that the Hideous Zippleback's jaws left Tori's shirt, she scrambled back against the water trough. The poor thing was shaking in fear at the pure terror of being scooped up in a dragon's jaws.

"Uh…sorry about that, Tori," Hiccup apologized as he knelt down next to her. "I kinda asked them to bring you here, just not that way."

"I don't know what we did wrong," Ruffnut said. "We found Tori and told her we had a surprise for her, that's all. Then she just ran away from us."

Fishlegs looked up from stroking Meatlug's head, "Um…don't you guys remember the last time you told Tori you had a surprise for her?"

Hicup looked up from the timid girl and answered for them, "No. Please enlighten us, Fishlegs."

"I can't believe you guys don't remember! It happened like three years ago. Tori ended up in a trough with those biting eels and crabs!"

"Uh, correction. We did that to Ingrid Frollinson," Tuffnut corrected smugly, crossing his arms in triumph.

Astrid shook her head as she countered, "No, I remember that. You guys stuffed Ingrid's boots with chicken eggs. Tori's the one who ended up in the trough."

The look of deep thought crossed the faces of the twins. Well, at least as deep as they could possibly go when it came to thinking. Their pool of thoughts and reason was quite a shallow one. Finally, realization came upon their faces.

"Oh yeah," Tuffnut nodded. "It's comin' back to me…that was totally awesome!"

"Yeah! We gotta do that again!" Ruffnut grinned along with her brother.

Hiccup then interrupted with an unexpected sharpness, "But not now, and especially _not_ with Tori!"

Under normal circumstances, none of the other teens would have been intimidated by a threat made by Hiccup, if you could even call it a threat. However, when you put that "threat" along with a harsh glare from Astrid, people tend to think twice before challenging it.

"Fine," Tuffnut gave out a heavy sigh in disappointment.

"Uh…again, I'm really sorry about this Tori," Hiccup continued on from before. She appeared to have calmed down considerably since her body was no longer shaking. Still, she continued to breath heavily and was sure to keep herself at a good distance away from the dragons.

"Wh-why am I here? What do you guys want with me?"

"I am actually glad you asked that," Hiccup said, trying to add great enthusiasm to his voice as he said continued. "Today is the day when you are gonna start dragon training! Yay!"

There was an awkward, and no other word could describe it, silence between them all. The other trainers had strange looks on their faces, Hiccup was giving Tori an expecting glance, and the girl herself…well, with the hood it was hard to tell what she was thinking.

"What?" she finally replied.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" Hiccup asked with a bit of a forced smile. "I talked with your parents last night and you are now my apprentice. When I'm no longer able to run the academy, you'll be there to take my place."

When the chief-to-be mentioned choosing Tori as an apprentice, Snotlout and the twins couldn't help but snicker to themselves. However, when he brought up how Tori would one day take over, their looks of amusement were replaced with indignity and shock.

"WHAT?!"

"You've gotta be kidding! _She's_ going to be the new leader of the Dragon Training Academy?!" Tori flinched at the volume of Snotlout's voice. "She doesn't even have a dragon!"

"Correction. She won't even go _near_ a dragon," Ruffnut interjected.

With a roll of the eyes and a sigh, Hiccup turned to them and said, "Believe me, that's not going to happen for a long time. Besides, she'll only take over once I become chief."

"I ask again: WHY HER?!" Snotlout bellowed, harshly throwing his arms in her direction.

"Yeah, why me?" Tori asked uncertainly. "I don't understand…"

"First of all, what was going on when I said to be 'gentle'?" Hiccup asked the Jorgenson boy, who huffed with crossed arms and turned away sharply. He turned to Tori and gently explained, "Look, Tori, we all know that you don't really see eye-to-eye with the dragons. I know that they seem scary, but that's why I decided to do this for you. You can't spend the rest of your life living in fear of them if they're going to be around you every day."

Tori bit her lip, looking as if she wanted to say something, but stopped herself. She stiffened when she felt something nudge against her side, yelping when Toothless' face came into her line of vision. Tori tried scooting along the water trough and away from the Night Fury only to feel her back collide with another dragon's snout. Meatlug had a large smile on her face as she let her tongue loll out of the side of her mouth.

"See?" Hiccup pointed out. "The dragons love you. I'm not asking much, Tori. All I'm asking is for you to try. Please."

Tori gulped and nodded swiftly, "Okay, I'll try! But could you please just call them off?"

"C'mon, girl," Fishlegs pulled the Gronckle back a few steps. When Meatlug whimpered a bit and looked away in sadness, he gave her soothing strokes as he whispered, "It's not you, Meatlug. She's just not ready yet."

"All right, Toothless. Easy," Hiccup patted the Night Fury on the head as he backed away a bit. "Great. Now that that's done, let's get started."

Tori used the trough to help herself up to her feet. She dusted off her top before hesitantly asking, "So…how do we begin…?"

"Well, we should probably start by getting rid of that hood. Dragons like to be looked in the eye when you're training them," Astrid said, pushing down the hood, only for her to quirk an eyebrow at the new problem.

Tori's black hair was short, but it still managed to cover the top part of her face and blocked almost all eye contact. Astrid sighed, setting her hands on her hips before saying, "Okay…better, but now we need to do something about that hair in your eyes."

"Oh, I could put it up, if that would help…" At the shield madien's curt nod, Tori turned over to the water trough. She started running her fingers through her hair and tried to fix it up.

"Um, Astrid? How is this supposed to help?" Fishlegs asked in a whisper.

"Well, its true. One of the crucial basics of bonding with dragons is eye contact," Hiccup reasoned. "It will be easier on her and it will be easier on the dragons."

Snotlout rolled his eyes as he asked, "And why do we care again?"

Hiccup sighed and smacked his forehead as Tuffnut shrugged, "I got nothing."

"Hey, is this okay?"

The jaws of the boys dropped as they got a good look at Tori. Though some of her bangs still hung down, it was still short enough to reveal more of her face. It was hardly enough to say that they were shocked that she'd hide such a pretty face: high cheekbones, small round nose, and large, violet eyes that emphasized her shyness.

"Much better," Astrid nodded in approval. Hiccup did the same in agreement.

"Good. I think the best way to for you to start would be to-"

Like a swarm of bees to a flower, Snotlout and Tuffnut had Tori surrounded. She jerked back, obviously startled by the sudden and unexpected attention.

"Tori, I know I've never said this to your face, but I'm gonna now," Tuffnut said as he draped an arm around her shoulder. "I've always thought you were hot."

Ruffnut gagged in mild disgust while Astrid scoffed and rolled her eyes. Hiccup shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as he said, "Guys-"

"Hey, back off!" Snotlout threw the male twin away from Tori. Said girl try to inch away from the dogfight, only to be harshly pulled back by the Jorgenson boy. He smirked at her smugly as he said, "I think we all know that Tori wants to be with a _real _Viking."

Astrid, finally seeing enough, shook her head and decided to intervene. She twisted Snotlout's arm, making him cringe and loosen his grip on Tori, who scurried out of the grip instantly.

"We're trying to make Tori less afraid of dragons, not more afraid of you."

She threw him down on the ground hard, brushing her bangs out of her eyes as she went back to Hiccup's side.

"Thank you, Astrid," he said. "As I was saying, I think that the best way for someone like you to start is to touch a dragon. Toothless."

At the sound of his name, the Night Fury came to his rider's side and nudged him affectionately. Hiccup stroked his head before saying, "For your first lesson, I want you to hold out your hand and let Toothless press his head against it."


	2. Lesson 2: To Bond with a Dragon

**Well, its chapter two and boy am I glad! We're going to pick up the pace a little bit starting with the next chapter. So, without further ado, I do not own HTTYD. I only own Tori, her parents, Blyn, and Shoo. I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!**

Tori's right hand trembled a bit as she held it out with her palm facing the Night Fury. The two were quite a bit of distance from each other, she on one end of the arena and Toothless on the other. The other trainers were off to the side with their dragons to watch the first lesson unfold.

"Um…I have a question," Tuffnut whispered. "Why are we doing this? Why can't we just get Tori a dragon for her to practice on?"

"Because we need to get Tori comfortable around other dragons before we can even think of getting her one," Fishlegs quietly explained.

"Exactly," Hiccup nodded, then called out to Tori, "Okay, Tori! Are you ready?"

With a heavy gulp, she answered, "About as ready as I'll ever be."

"Good! In this lesson, there are two important things to keep in mind: first, it's never a good idea to just walk up to a wild dragon. When you hold out your hand, you do half the work and Toothless will meet you the rest of the way."

"O-okay," she nodded, taking a few cautious steps forward. With the nod of his trainer, Toothless started forward as well, though at a slow pace.

"And the other important thing is that dragons can sense your fear. So try to be as relaxed as possible," Astrid said.

Tori shuddered a bit when she stopped at the spot that Hiccup had marked down. Toothless stopped for a moment as well, and then came forward.

"That's it. You're doing good Tori," Hiccup told her. When he got a look from Astrid that read 'Is she?' He merely shrugged and replied, "Well, she isn't backing off. So we have to be doing something right."

"YEAH!" the two flinched and glared at Snotlout and Tuffnut. The Jorgenson boy clapped his hands loudly as he cheered, "WHOO! Get'em, babe!"

"Please, I can cheer louder than that!" Tuffnut elbowed him roughly before shouting on the top of his lungs, "GO TORI! YOU PET THAT DRAGON!"

Tori cringed and closed her hand as she brought it back slightly. Toothless growled at the two boys and fired a small plasma blast at their feet. Not big enough to do damage, but just enough to get them to shut up. They were off the ground in an instant, hiding behind Hookfang and Belch in an instant.

The Night Fury turned his attention back onto Tori, who had her hand pulled back the whole way and looked completely terrified. He cocked his head a little, humming a bit as he sat down. In an attempt to rekindle the small amount of bravery that she had and show that he was no real threat to her, he shakily opened his mouth and gave her a gummy smile.

"Toothless, don't do that," Hiccup groaned. "That's not really helping…"

"Actually, it kind of is," Astrid stated, gesturing to Toothless and Tori.

Hiccup's eyebrows arched as he saw that Toothless actually was helping. Tori had a small smile on her face in amusement at his own gummy grin. It dissipated just a little as she once again held her hand out, open palm and all, though it was still trembling in anticipation.

Toothless came forward once again and when he was just mere inches from her hand, he paused. The dragon gave a few curious sniffs before he closed his eyes and pressed his snout against her hand. Tori gasped a little and almost shot her hand away from the Night Fury until Hiccup said,

"No, no, no. You're doing fine, Tori. Just keep your hand there for a few more seconds."

She stood rigidly still and kept her hand planted on the Night Fury's snout for what felt like long, painful hours. But in reality, it only was five seconds.

"And…good job, Tori," she breathed out as she pulled her hand away. Toothless blinked at her with his pupils full and round and purred loudly.

"That was a good start," Hiccup applauded. "Why don't we give that another go with one of the other dragons?"

Tori shrunk back a bit, but reluctantly agreed, "O-okay…which one?"

He merely spread his arms out to the trained dragons, "You're the student. You pick."

Almost immediately, Snotlout and Tuffnut were at attention while still mounted on their dragons. Hookfang and Belch both leaned towards the girl, making her stumble back and fall to the ground.

"One dragon, ready for pettin', babe. No need to thank me," Snotlout winked at her.

"Why have one when you can have two?" Tuffnut had Barf and Belch push past Hookfang and stopped just a few inches away from Tori. Meatlug suddenly roared at the two, her eyes narrowed menacingly as if to say 'Back off!'

Tori smiled a bit, touched by the Gronkle's actions, and hesitantly reached out a hand. She knew that Meatlug was somewhat hurt when she turned her away and the dragon meant no harm at all, so she wanted to make things right. Since Toothless was the first, Tori would make sure she was the second.

Meatlug continued to hiss and growl until she felt Tori's hand make contact with the side of her head. Her pupils dilated as they went to Tori before her tail started to wag happily. Tori patted her rough, bumpy skin as she got back onto her feet.

"Wow, you are just breezing through the steps," Hiccup nodded, feeling a great spark of hope ignite within him. "This'll be easier then I-OW! What was that for?!"

Astrid crossed her arms and shrugged, "Every time you say 'this'll be easier than I thought,' everything backfires. So why don't we save that for when we actually get Tori on a dragon of her own."

As he rubbed his sore arm, Hiccup opened his mouth to protest, but then shut it. Astrid did have a point. He wasn't a passionate believer in superstition, but with a case like Tori, better to be safe than sorry. He would have to save the self-assurance for when Tori was on her own dragon…which he was hoping would be soon.

* * *

_The Night Fury. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. The proper way to train a Night Fury is to first get his or her attention, and then earn his or her trust. This can be done with the simple offering of a fish and showing the Night Fury that you mean no harm by not carrying any weapons._

Tori's eyes were in a focused haze while scanning over the information within the Book of Dragons. It was a small assignment from Hiccup to study from the book as much as she could every day. According to him, one of the best ways to face her fears was to understand them better.

So, there she sat in the Great Hall with nothing more than the book, some water, and an apple for a snack. She had only gotten through with three chapters; the Gronkle, Deadly Nadder, and Terrible Terror, and was now on the Night Fury chapter. She was so focused, she had no idea that someone had taken the seat next to her. At least, she didn't notice until the book was forcibly shut.

"Trust me, babe. There's something much better to look at. And he's sitting right next to you," Snotlout said, wrapping a beefy arm around her and nearly crushing the thin girl.

With a large gulp, Tori spoke in a well-calmed tone, "Th-that's nice, Snotlout, but I think I'll just finish my snack and head home to uh…study some more."

A curt clearing of the throat caught them both a bit by surprise, making them turn around. Stoick was looking down at the two of them, "And what exactly is going on here?"

"Uh…nothing, sir," Snotlout nervously replied, taking his arm off of Tori. The chief arched an eyebrow at him, but then shook his head, feeling that he didn't even want to know what was happening.

"Nevermind. I'm here because Hiccup told me that Tori came here. Have you seen her?"

Tori and surprisingly Snotlout's eyes widened, obviously taken aback by the question. They looked at each other from the corner of their eyes and then back at Stoick. Sheepishly, Tori raised up a hand and quietly replied, "Um…right here, chief."

It was Stoick's turn to be taken aback. He remembered Hiccup saying that she wouldn't even be recognized when he was done with her, but he didn't think it would happen that fast. Despite his son saying that Tori had made a good first start, he thought she would still be a bit more reserved. It was a true surprise that she was improving already.

"Tori! I didn't even recognize you without your hood on. Your father and I wanted to have a talk with you."

"Okay. I'm coming," Tori scooped the book up in her arms before saying, "Bye, Snotlout. See you tomorrow."

Giving the Jorgenson boy one last glance, Stoick turned and walked with the girl through the village. They walked in silence for about a moment until he asked, "So, I trust that your dragon training is going well?"

She merely shrugged and said, "About as well as it can be for me. I didn't do much today. I touched Toothless and Meatlug on the snout today. I think Hiccup's trying to get me comfortable around the dragons before we do any actual training."

He nodded, "Good. I'm glad that he's taking it easy with you. Especially after what you've been through."

Tori looked up at him, feeling completely horrified as she asked, "Does he-"

"Know? No. The only people who speak of _that_ are your parents and Gobber. And only to each other"

She let out a sigh of relief, clutching the Book of Dragons close to her chest. The two reached the Korrinston home in no time at all and her parents were, to say the least, surprised at her new transformation.

"Oh, Tori! I can't believe you've been hiding such a pretty face for so long!" Verna gushed, nearly choking poor Tori with a tight hug. "I'm so happy that your lesson went well today."

"Me too, mother," Tori gasped out. "And trust me, you're not the only one who thinks so."

Agmund quirked an eyebrow as Verna set her down, "Oh? And what do you mean by that?"

Stoick chuckled as he patted the young girl on the back, "According to Hiccup, Tori turned quite a few heads at the academy today. Astrid had to pry Snotlout and Tuffnut off of her."

Her father's eyes flashed dangerously, "What?"

"Tori, why don't you go upstairs and study. I think Blyn would like to read along with you, too," Verna said as she gripped her husband's arm comfortably.

Blyn, even at a young age of eleven, was the bolder and more outgoing little brother of Tori's. She knew he'd been crazy about joining the academy to train a dragon of his own once he was old enough. Due to that, she felt that it was only natural that her mother would assume he'd be more than eager to study with her.

She nodded, "Okay."

So, Tori rushed upstairs and down the narrow hallway where she stopped at the end and knocked on the door before opening it, "Blyn. Can I come in?"

The young boy was laid out flat on his bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling while tossing a ball at the wall. It always bounced back onto his stomach before he threw it again. He was still awaiting his growth spurt and was currently stuck with his slight baby-fat face, sky blue eyes, and scruffy dark brown hair.

"I guess. What do you want?"

"Well…I just wanted to tell you that I started dragon training today. Hiccup gave me the Book of Dragons, so I was wondering-"

"Wait!" Blyn sat up abruptly, grunting as the ball he threw hit him on his helmet before turning to his sister. "_You _joined the Dragon Training Academy?"

_Not by choice_, she thought somewhat bitterly to herself, but nodded, "Yes. I was wondering if you'd like to study the book with me. I know you want to be a dragon trainer too, so-"

"Are you kidding? Yes!" Blyn grinned as he pulled his sister by her sleeve to his bed. He laid on his stomach, his chin resting in his hands as he awaited his sister to read from the book. She sat on the bed and flipped through the pages, stopping on a new dragon for them both to learn about.

_"The Scauldron. This __colossal Tidal Class dragon drinks water constantly, heating it up to dangerous temperatures in its cauldron-like stomach and uses it to spray its enemies with hot, and often fatal, torrents of water. To train a Scauldron, it is best to bring fish (or smell like one) or even cover yourself in sea water. Basically, do anything that reminds them of their home in the sea."_

* * *

So, for the next few days, it was a bit of a familiar routine for Tori. Fish, train, chores, study, sleep, repeat. She actually had to admit that she was getting more and more comfortable with the dragons. Although, she had to admit that there were only a few that she truly trusted: Toothless, Meatlug, and Stormfly. She didn't really hold anything against Hookfang and Barf and Belch, but that couldn't be said about their riders.

This went on like that for quite a few days and after about five days, Hiccup thought he would try something a little more advanced.

"Okay, Tori. You're really improving," he said as he brought out two fish from a basket. In order to distance herself from Tuffnut and Snotlout, Tori had decided that it would be best to stick near either Astrid or Toothless. In this case, she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, scratching Toothless behind his ear plates while he purred in content. "I thought that today we could turn it up a notch. You've gotten used to being around dragons and now comes the next step: bonding with dragons. Now the most basic form of bonding is feeding the dragons. Why don't you try feeding Toothless?"

He tossed the fish to her, which she did by their cold, dead tails. Tori reached into her pocket and pulled out a little jar, dabbing some sort of brown liquid with green specks over the fish. Hiccup raised an eyebrow as she put it away and said, "Okay, ready."

"Um…okay. What exactly was that stuff and why did you put it on the fish?"

"Oh, this is a little something I came up with a few weeks ago. Sometimes the dragons in town would try to steal fish from my wagon and then fight for it. I thought I could use some Dragon Nip on the fish to help calm them down. The brown stuff is a little marinade made from chicken fat, mutton juice, and a mix of some herbs to add flavor," she explained as she held a fish out to Toothless. He gave a few interested sniffs before taking the fish in his teeth and swallowing it whole. It wasn't until a few seconds after that his head fell to the ground, purring even louder in bliss. "Unfortunately, even though it kept them from fighting, it only made them want more fish."

"That's incredible!" Fishlegs gasped excitedly. "Hiccup, do you know how much that would decrease fighting among the dragons in town?"

"That's just what I was thinking, Fishlegs," he nodded. "And just think: these fish could help us tame and train some of the more dangerous dragons. Like Whispering Deaths or even Changewings. This is ingenious, Tori!"

Her cheeks tinted a bit red, but couldn't help but smile a little at the praise, "It's really nothing. I help my mom cook a lot, so that helped me do that."

"Well, I think it's a great idea. Good job, babe," Snotlout slid next to her, slipping his arm around her in a way that was very uncomfortable to Tori.

"Hookfang!" she called out, making the slumbering Monstrous Nightmare perk up immediately. His attention was especially drawn when she held up the other seasoned fish. "Salmon. It's all yours if you get Snotlout off of me."

Before Snotlout could get out the word "huh?", Hookfang had his trousers in his jaws before tossing him into the water trough. He turned around and stomped his feet lightly on the ground, eager to get his treat. Tori tossed the other fish into the air, where Hookfang snapped at it and swallowed it whole. He slumped onto the ground, peacefully rumbling at his full stomach.

Astrid smirked, "What do you know? Those fish have a dual purpose."

* * *

It was pure black at midnight on the isle of Berk. The dragons were surprisingly deep and quiet in their sleep in town and the waves were gently throwing themselves at the wooden docks down below. A dark shadow stealthily moved across the docks. This was the shadow of a person, who appeared to be carrying a large box over to one of the ships. It looked around, seeing if anyone had followed. When it was satisfied, it jumped onto the ship and set the box next to the mast before fleeing into the night.

* * *

Tori yawned and stretched her arms as she lazily walked down to the docks. Getting an earlier start was often hard, but she had gotten quite used to the routine by now. After gathering the necessary equipment; worms, some fish for snacking, nets, and a pole, she felt she was ready to go. She jumped onto her small ship and yelped as she tripped and ran right into the mast. As she rubbed her head and winced in pain, she was startled to hear very faint squeaking and scratching noises.

She looked down and saw that there was a box just sitting there. There was no recollection of bringing or forgetting a box, so she assumed that she didn't put it there. She jumped back when the box shook a little, giving out the same squeaks and scratches. Tori gulped and slightly lifted the lid, peeking inside only to be thrown back as a little violet shot out of the box and at her chest.

After shaking her head to clear the haze of the attack, Tori's eyes widened in slight fear. A Terrible Terror sniffed at her, catching the scent of fish in the air and eagerly searching for it. He was dark purple in color, with black horns and highlights along his spine and tail. He had a pure white belly and little black, razor sharp claws.

"AHH!" she screamed, pushing herself back and knocking the Terrible Terror off her. He squeaked out in protest, picking himself up and shaking off the fall before looking back at her with large yellow eyes.

"G-go on, now. Shoo," Tori waved her hands lightly at the Terrible Terror. He let out a small roar as he stumbled back a bit, but did not go away. Instead, he came a bit closer and gave out little chirps of interest.

He stood up on his hind legs and growled out loudly, making the same shooing motion with his front paws. He squeaked out loudly as he fell onto his back, squirming a bit as he got back onto his feet. He shook himself off much like a wet dog before looking back up at her. He flew up and perched himself on her shoulder, letting out a series of musical clicks and chirps as he rubbed himself against her.

Tori shuddered a bit, but willed herself to remain calm. Perhaps this was a test set up by Hiccup to test her skills with her training. So, she took in a shaky breath before holding her hand out towards the dragon. The Terror stopped his song as he looked at it, but instead of pressing his snout against it, he lifted it and let it run along his back as he growled out in content.

"I guess…I guess you're gonna stick around from now on, huh?" she asked him as she plucked him off of her shoulder. He squirmed a little, flailing his limbs as he gleefully squeaked and growled. "I…suppose I should give you a name then."

The Terrible Terror merely chirped, using his paws to 'shoo' at her, making her actually crack a smile at how adorable it was, "How about Shoo?"

He blinked and cocked his head while his forked tongue drooped out before shooting right back out. He squirmed out of her grip as he climbed back onto his trainer's shoulder and resumed his song. Tori shrugged, figuring that he liked his new name.

* * *

**OHHH! So many questions! What did happen to Tori? Is that why she's so afraid of the dragons? Who left that box on Tori's boat? Will she and Shoo stay good friends? And will Hookfang ever get tired of throwing Snotlout into the water trough?**

**…Okay, that last question is kind of obvious. But stay tuned to find out the answer to the other four questions. Have a nice day!**


	3. Lesson 3: To Train a Dragon

**TO THOSE OF THOSE WHO READ THE WARNING IN THE SUMMARY, PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS! IF THERE WAS ANYTHING IN THE AUTHOR'S NOTES THAT I IMPLORE YOU TO READ, PLEASE LET IT BE THIS!**

**I've been giving it some thought, and I believe that Stormcutter isn't exactly the dragon that Tori should have an entirely "deep" connection with. To be honest, I'm sure that the people who read this will not entirely like this choice, but let me make a few things clear: 1. Winter will still have a place within this story and the future ones to come, 2. This is MY story and changes like this happen all of the time. I just thought it would be unethical as a writer to change this without warning. It will take a few days to incorporate the new dragon into the story, but it will be done soon, so please be patient. I tried to find a dragon that had plenty of fierceness, but also was one that didn't have a rider now or in the future. In other words, this is one dragon that only Tori will train and ride. I'm sorry if there are a few of you who have a problem with this, but I've made up my mind. **

**Yay! Chapter three! Well, I told you guys that this story would start moving a bit faster, and I was only half right. The next few chapters will be a bit fast, but then it will start to calm down. **

**AnonymousZGirl- First, sorry I didn't reply to you in the last chapter. But thank you for commenting on Shoo. And I do know that about baby dragons. I have to say that the sequel was my favorite movie of this entire year, even though I burst into tears near the end. Honestly, I didn't cry that much when Mufasa died in the Lion King. **

**Anyway, I do not own HTTYD. I only own Tori, Blyn, Shoo, and their parents. Hope you enjoy the chapter!**

Hiccup paced back and forth, occasionally glancing at the entrance of the academy entrance. This was the first time ever that Tori had been late and it was entirely unlike her. In fact, she was often the first one at the academy since she started her training. The fact that she was this late actually started to worry him.

"Maybe her dad pulled her out of dragon training," Ruffnut said.

"But why? We haven't done anything to hurt her," Hiccup shook his head. "I think Toothless and I should go and look for her-"

"We're here! We're late, but we're here!" Tori slid down the entrance and stopped in front of the dragon trainers. "Sorry. I guess the time just got away from us…"

"'We'? 'Us'?" Astrid asked, setting her hands on her waist. "I thought you always went fishing by yourself. Who was with you?"

Shoo's head suddenly poked out of Tori's hood, where he had been peacefully sleeping until he noticed they had stopped. He crawled out and wrapped himself around her shoulders, rubbing his head affectionately against hers. What had definitely astounded the dragon trainers was that when he did so, Tori didn't flinch or shy away at all. In fact, Tori actually smiled when the little Terror started chirping out a song for her.

"Wow, Tori. I'm impressed. I wasn't going to have you try to bond with a Terror for another few days. Where'd you find this little guy?" Hiccup asked, rubbing the Terrible Terror's head.

Tori frowned a bit and tilted her head as she said, "He was in a box on my boat this morning. You didn't put him there?"

He shook his head, "I know I didn't. Guys?"

"I didn't," Astrid shrugged. Fishlegs and Snotlout shook their heads, but then suddenly, Shoo started growling and hissing menacingly. He shot off of Tori's shoulder and right at Tuffnut's face, making him yell out wordlessly as the little Terror scratched and screeched at his face. Hiccup blinked and gestured,

"And now we have the answer."

Tori rolled her eyes, "Why didn't I think of that in the first place? Shoo! Get back here!"

The violet Terror turned back to her, scrambling off of Tuffnut and over to Tori and jumping into her arms. He let out a little yawn before snuggling into her chest and purring in content. Tuffnut groaned as he sat up, "See? I knew you'd like him!"

Tori blinked blandly at him before leaning over and whispering something into Ruffnut's ear. She at first looked confused, but then a large grin grew on her face. The second Tori stepped away, Ruffnut kicked her brother in the shin, knocking him down to the ground after he had just gotten back up.

"I know you told her to do that. And I just want to say that I felt all your love in that kick," Tuffnut wheezed out, trying to mask his pain. Tori frowned deeply, holding Shoo ever more closely to her chest,

"Well, as much finding Shoo nearly gave me a heart attack, I have to admit that I've grown attached to the little guy since this morning. So, thank you, Tuffnut. That was very thoughtful of you."

"Shoo?" Fishlegs asked, clearly not following on the name. Tori smiled and held the Terrible Terror out, and he flicked his paws gleefully at the dragon trainers.

"Shoo's actually…a very fitting name for this little guy," Hiccup commented. "Well, since you have your own dragon now, we can actually start on some more advanced exercises. How about we start with…hand signals. That's always a good place to start."

* * *

Dinnertime at the Korrinston home was entirely…awkward to say the least. Blyn was ecstatic that his sister had brought home a dragon, especially since Shoo was going to be sticking around for a long time. Verna was happy that her daughter was able to look past her fear and make a new friend out of a dragon. As with Agmund, well, it took a good bit of time to convince him to allow Shoo to stay. However, it ended in he giving Shoo a chance to see how much his daughter would improve.

"Tori, I'm happy that you've made a new friend, but-" Verna began, and then Agmund took over,

"Does he really have to eat right at the table?"

The girl turned her eyes to Shoo, who had three fish in a bowl as he sat on the table. She turned back to her father and said, "I can't help it. Every time I put his bowl on the floor, he just brings it back up."

"I like Shoo. He's so cool," Blyn grinned, reaching out and scratching him behind the horns. Shoo responded by squeaking and humming in bliss before taking a fish and swallowing it whole.

Sighing deeply, Agmund pushed his chair out as he stood and walked to the fireplace, "While we're on the subject of dragons, Tori, I have somethin' fer ye."

Tori sat up a little straighter as her father turned back around, holding a shield out for her. She took it and smiled widely, running her hands along the metal rim that had yet to get any dents. She especially loved the red mountain ram insignia with the black background. Even Blyn and Shoo gathered around to admire it.

"It's te, ye know, keep ye safe durin' yer training."

"I…I don't know what to say," she said, feeling the wooden surface. "Thank you, dad."

Agmund smiled, messing her hair up a bit, "Well, one good thing is comin' out of this. Ye really do look more beautiful with yer hair outta yer face."

* * *

"Okay, everyone. Today, we will continue to work on our hand signals," Hiccup told the other dragon riders. "Tori, why don't you go first? How many signals have you taught Shoo?"

"Um…four. I taught him four hand signals," Tori replied. "They're just very basic commands. Nothing that impressive…"

Hiccup insisted, "Well, let's have a look at them, anyway."

"Oh, okay," Tori gulped, feeling nervous as she walked over and set Shoo down on top of a barrel. As she took the center of attention she turned back to the trainers and said, "For this first command, I'll need a volunteer. Someone who's fast and brave."

"ME!" Snotlout and Tuffnut shot their hands up instantly. Before they could break into a fight, Tori instantly pointed at Snotlout. The Jorgenson boy cried out in triumph, "That's right! It's me she picked! Snotlout, Snotlout! Oy, oy, oy!"

He shook in anticipation as he went right up to Tori, "What'cha want me to do, babe?"

She merely pointed at an axe that was sitting on a barrel on the other side of the arena, "I want you to get that axe and bring it back to me as fast as you can when I say so."

Snotlout nodded eagerly, practically shooting off as soon as Tori said "Go!" When he was halfway across the arena, Tori snapped her fingers which caught Shoo's attention. The Terror watched as she put her arm across her chest, clenching her fist before pointing over to the axe. He growled before taking flight over their heads, landing down with a thud on the other barrel and on top of the axe. Snotlout skidded to a stop as Shoo began to hiss at him, his eyes narrowed and his body lurched back and ready to pounce.

"Aw, come on!" He stomped his foot in agitation. "You wanna piece of me, pal? Huh?"

Shoo instantly shot a fireball at Snotlout, making him jump back. Hiccup nudged Tori as Snotlout continued to try and get the axe, "Um…what kind of command is this, anyway?"

Tori made the same gesture and whispered, "Defend."

"Ah," he nodded. "Well, as fun as it is to watch this, how about we start on the next command?"

With a nod, Tori whistled for the Terrible Terror, who was at attention immediately. Tori held a hand over her eyes, much like a salute, and then pointed at the entrance to the academy. Immediately, Shoo shot off of the barrel, and landed onto the metallic netting up above and seemed to be observing the entrance. When he appeared to be satisfied, he let out a merry tune.

To explain, Tori repeated the pose and said, "Lookout. So far, he makes that sound when it's safe to go on."

"I like that. And it actually will be useful for you for tomorrow's exercise," Astrid said as Shoo came down and perched on Tori's head.

The raven-haired girl frowned a bit, "Wh-what exercise?"

When Astrid opened her mouth, ready to speak, Snotlout interrupted as he panted. He held the axe out to Tori and said, "Here's your axe."

Smiling a bit anxiously, Tori gratefully accepted the axe. In all honesty, it was her father's that she had borrowed for the exercise. So, of course she had to accept it from him.

"Tomorrow's exercise. We'll be spelunking in the tunnels of the Whispering Deaths at the Cavernous Cove," Astrid explained, gesturing to the map of the isle not all that far from Dragon Island.

Everyone, excluding Hiccup and Tori, groaned and complained loudly. Astrid scowled as Hiccup said, "C'mon guys. This is actually an important exercise. We need to practice encountering dangerous situations in the caves underneath Berk. The Cavernous Cove is the best place to do that."

Ruffnut raised a hand as she asked, "So, does that mean you're gonna be needing a new apprentice? Cuz Tori's _not _going to survive that."

Tori shrunk down a bit in fright, yet her fear seemed to spike when she felt a thick arm crush her in a strong grip. Snotlout smirked as he said, "Don't worry, babe. I'll protect you."

"Uh, correction!" Tuffnut pushed him away and pulled Tori to him. "I'm gonna protect Tori."

Just as a brawl was about to unfold with Tori caught in the middle, Astrid cut in and said, "I'm actually glad you guys asked. Unfortunately, Tori won't be joining us."

"WHAT?! WHY NOT?!" the two males exclaimed.

"Sorry, guys, but with Shoo as Tori's only dragon, she really isn't ready to take on something like this," Hiccup explained to them. "That said, Astrid actually has an alternate exercise for Tori."

He waved for Astrid to continue, but only did so when she roughly shoved away Snotlout and Tuffnut. She handed Tori a small book and the Book of Dragons before showing her a map,

"Okay, I made this exercise so that its simple _and _challenging. All I want you to do is take Shoo and hike from Berk all the way to the north entrance of the Lost Cavern and hike back. While you do that, you're going to write and draw down what wild dragons you encounter and how you deal with them. Got it?"

"I-I think so…" Tori looked over the map, mentally plotting out a course. Shoo climbed onto the table and sniffed at the map. "But, what if I run into a really dangerous dragon? What if what I learned doesn't work on it?"

Astrid patted her on the back, roughly but reassuringly, "Don't worry. If you get into any trouble, just have Shoo shoot a fireball into the sky and your sentry, which will be one of us, will come and give you help. But _only_ as a last resort."

"I'll do it! I'll be the sentry!" Tuffnut cried out and waving his arm, pushing Snotlout to the side before he could volunteer. However, the Jorgenson boy was just as determined and just as stubborn.

"No way! Tori needs a sentry with a keen eye, sharp mind, and true warrior strength to keep her safe!"

The two winced in pain as the blonde shield maiden twisted their arms, "All of which you both don't have."

She slammed them down on the ground, dusting her hands off as Hiccup told them, "Tori gets to choose which one of us is the sentry. Besides, it's not like you're going to be walking next to her anyhow. All you're going to do is patrol around the forest in case Shoo fires a blast into the sky."

"So, whose it gonna be, Tori?"

"Oh, um…well, they both are pretty eager, but I guess we can leave it all up to a coin toss…"

"A…what toss?" Tuffnut asked dumbly. However, the rest of the group was looking at her strangely as well. Tori reached into her pocket and brought out an ancient, metallic coin.

"My father found this in the forest when he was younger and told me this was how he and his brothers divided the chores. All they did was flip this coin and called a side: either heads or tails. Whichever side faced up when it landed won."

"How's that going to decide anything?" Ruffnut asked, feeling just about as lost as everyone else.

Tori blinked and explained, "It's a game of chance, so nobody can cheat. It's a fair way to decide. Snoutlout and Tuffnut can both choose a side and whichever one comes out on top wins."

"That's actually not a bad idea, Tori," Hiccup nodded. "Let's do it."

"Oh! I want heads!" Snotlout exclaimed.

"Hey, no fair! I wanted heads!" Tuffnut complained, scowling as he got in Snotlout's face.

Hiccup sighed and turned to the dragon trainee, "What's the verdict, Tori?"

"Um…sorry, Tuffnut. You have to call it first. Snotlout gets heads and you get tails."

The male twin huffed and crossed his arms as Snotlout grinned in triumph. Tori tossed it up in the air and the other watched it spin a bit as it went up and then fell back down. Tori caught the coin and slapped it down on the back of her hand. She lifted her hand and said aloud, "Heads. Snotlout wins."

"YES!" Snotlout whooped, throwing his fists up in the air. He wrapped an arm around Tori once again and said, "You've got nothin' to worry about, Tori. If you get afraid, just shoot me a fireball and I'll be there to protect you."

Pleadingly, Tori turned over to Astrid and mouthed 'help me' to her. The blonde Viking shrugged, figuring that since Tori's been through enough with having to face dragons, she should at least not have to deal with Snotlout of all people. So, she twisted Snotlout's free arm, allowing his grip on Tori to loosen so she could escape. When she was able to, Astrid released Snotlout.

"Great, so everyone get their rest and we'll be good for tomorrow," Hiccup told them.

* * *

So, early the next morning, Tori and Shoo were on their way towards the Lost Cavern. Since she wanted to try and get through the exercise as quickly as possible, she figured it was just best to do it immediately. In her pack, she had packed everything that Hiccup had recommended for her: Dragon Nip, a shiny object, a map, a compass, and, of course, the Book of Dragons. She also packed away a few fish, a snack, a canteen, and her shield.

By mid-morning, she was already halfway to the Lost Cavern and had caught no sign of any dragons. That was about to change very quickly.

"Okay. Raven Point is just over there, so we are actually halfway to the Lost Cavern," Tori muttered, setting the map under her arm. Shoo sat comfortably atop of her head, resting and squeaking as he just enjoyed the breeze with his wings spread out wide.

When there was a rustling in the bushes, Tori stopped and stepped back, making her Terrible Terror jerk and squeak indignantly. When he caught the sound of the rustling bushes, however, he instantly perked. The second Tori had gripped her shield, a dark blue and orange Nadder jumped out of the bushes, squawking as he flung his tail spines at the two.

Tori gasped as she brought up her shield, catching three of the spines while the others missed their mark entirely. Shoo hissed menacingly before preparing a fireball, which was stopped instantly by his trainer's command, "No, Shoo! Let's try to get on his good side."

Tossing the shield to the side, Tori slowly moved towards the dragon, trying her best not to cringe when the dragon hissed and raised his tail. She hushed him gently, moving to his side and running a hand along his scaly side. He kept his glare on her at all time, but couldn't help but purr at her gentle touches. Tori hesitated when she had gotten to his tail, but went ahead and stroked it, smoothing down the spines. The second her hand moved away from him, the Nadder turned around and looked at her appreciatively, yet his contented growling increased when she pulled out a marinated fish.

"Here ya go, boy. Eat the fish," she tossed up the fish, which he caught and swallowed heartily. It wasn't seconds later when he slumped down to the ground, his eyes closed and his tongue hanging out as he hissed in bliss. While the Nadder was at peace, Tori was sure to distance herself a bit before bringing out her journal and noting her dragon training accomplishment.

"I really don't want to face a nasty surprise like that again," Tori said to herself as she brought Shoo down to her shoulder. She gave him the 'Lookout' signal and he complied with a joyful squeak, taking off in the air to survey the path ahead. Tori leaned against a tree, patiently awaiting the return of her dragon when something dawned on her, "Oh no! My shield!"

She couldn't bear to leave behind one of her two only defenses while out in the wilderness, that one being a gift from her father, and the other not there to aid her if she needed it. So, after locating it near the still-dazed Nadder, she pulled the spines out and tossed them to the side. The moment she had her shield strapped to her back, the Deadly Nadder was up and active yet again. From the sounds that he made, he didn't see Tori as a foe or food, but that didn't really make things better when he decided to playfully, yet very roughly, nudge her on the back. Tori yelped at the sudden push and before she could stop herself, she fell and rolled down the hill. She cried out in pain all the way down, screaming a bit when she flew off of a ledge and landed on something hard and warm.

Tori groaned, pushing herself up and rubbing her head to ease the pain. At first, the only concern she had was getting herself back on the path before she could run into any dangerous dragons. Unfortunately, that ship had sailed the moment she landed from her fall, even if she didn't know it. It wasn't until she heard an agitated growl that she noticed just what she landed on. Something hard, warm, and _moving_. _Breathing_, even. What she thought would have been a rock or even just a rough patch of meadow was actually a mass of dragon scales and muscle. Although it didn't feel like it. It felt more like it was a hard shell than scales.

The raven-haired girl yelped when the dragon moved and made her fall off, landing flat on her back. After blinking the dizziness out of her violet eyes, they widened at the mere size of the dragon in front of her. The beast's form came to its full height, being even taller than any of the dragons she had seen back in the village. And it even seemed more vicious than the rest of the dragons.

It was completely unlike anything she had ever seen before. She hadn't even seen this kind of dragon in the Book of Dragons! It was large, but not so much giant as it was stocky in build. It stood on two back legs, but it's two front legs were...well, looked more like pincers than they did legs. It also had a knotted, curved tail with an intimidating stinger. Tori had to admit it, however, that she was mostly fascinated with the dragon's colors.

It was dominantly black in color, but had a bright blue coloring on its underbelly, stripes on its wings, and even some appearing on some parts of its tail, facial horns, and appendages. To match, it even had a pair of striking dark blue eyes that were boring into Tori's violet ones. The dragon narrowed his eyes at her and approached slowly while taking sharp sniffs at her.

With fear taking the better of her, Tori started scooting back on the ground, being careful not to make any sudden movements to provoke any attack. It appeared to work, seeing as the dragon only kept following her and sniffing her, giving out only an occasional soft growl or churr. Tori felt her blood turn cold as she felt her back collide with the cliff. Upon then coming to an end, the pupils of the dragon's eyes suddenly shrunk and he growled, teeth bared and all. And as if the situation couldn't get any worse, she gasped as the dragon's tail actually split into not one, but _three _tails.

"E-easy, big guy..." Tori whimpered a bit. Her hands were shaking as she reached for the flounder she had packed as a snack. Perhaps she could use it as a peace offering, that is if he doesn't attack first. Maybe she could even use some of the salve that helps calming the dragons down. "I have something for you. I think you're r-really going to like it..."

The dragon's eyes narrowed, and it was clear that the hostility was still there. The three tails stiffened, as if he were ready to strike should Tori make a move he didn't like. Tori held out the fish and for a slight second, it appeared that the beast may be reconsidering his attack. That lasted until Tori began to stand up, in which he began his swift assault. With an enraged hiss, he threw his tails forward: Tori took in a sharp breath, dodging the first two, but yelping as she was only grazed in the arm, though there was enough venom to achieve the desired effect.

Tori cringed as she collapsed, her whole body going numb. The dragon's tail twisted back together before it crouched down, his snout approaching her slowly with a low growl. The Viking girl's eyes shut to await the oncoming end that was inevitable. She didn't want to believe that it would all end here, but she couldn't find any other way out. Shoo was nowhere around to fire a warning to Snotlout for help. She couldn't move a bone in her body even if she had the fighting skills to defend herself with.

She heard the distinct sound of teeth snapping, and she couldn't help but flinch. However, she felt no pain (though she probably wouldn't feel it, anyway). With that, she opened her eyes and saw the tail of the flounder in his jaws, just before it disappeared down his throat. He bent down, sniffing along her body for the possibility of more fish.

_BOOM!_

The dragon reared back and roared angrily after shaking off the small fire ball that hit him. Shoo growled as viciously as possible while diving down to defend his trainer. Having gotten what he wanted, he decided that the Terrible Terror was not worth the trouble. He took off with a furious growl and was out of sight in a matter of seconds. It amazed Tori to no end seeing as she had not seen a dragon disappear that fast since Toothless.

Shoo squeaked as he landed next to her, nudging her with his head worriedly. Tori managed to actually move her mouth as she slowly regain feeling in her body, "It's okay, Shoo. I'll be fine."

The violet Terror was not entirely convinced, but still just curled up next to her and waited. The moments felt slow and agonizing, but after only a few of them, Tori had regained all feeling within her body. She got up, shaking out her limbs and gathering her bearings. Despite what just happened, she couldn't help but smile widely and grab her journal, sitting down and quickly sketching the mysterious dragon. If this species wasn't in the Book of Dragons, there was the strong possibility that she had just discovered a new species. Hiccup was sure to be pleased with this!

* * *

"All right! Let's see what you've got from this," Fishlegs said, flipping through some of the pages of Tori's journal. His eyebrows furrowed a bit at the lack of drawings and notes, "Really? Were you only able to find a Nadder and a few Gronckles and Terrors?"

"That shouldn't be right," Astrid turned to the apprentice, her arms crossed as she continued, "Are you sure you went all the way too and from the cave?"

Tori bit her lip a bit, her eyes roaming around all of the people in the Great Hall: all of the dragon trainers, Stoick, Gobber, and even her parents. She felt a bit bad for not including the newest dragon at first, but she knew it would be worth it.

"Now, I'm sure there is a good explanation for this," Hiccup came to defend her, but then turned to her and asked almost pleadingly, "There is a good explanation for this, right Tori?"

She nodded, holding her notes and sketches close to her as she replied, "Oh, yes! There really is, but I want to ask you something first: um...how well do you think I'm doing in my training?"

This actually took some of the people aback, yet Hiccup merely replied, "Uh, very well, actually. You're really coming along."

"Oh, great. So...how far off would you say I am from, I don't know, having a dragon of my own...to ride?"

If the last question didn't take the cake, this one surely did. Even Hiccup was surprised, but it was quickly replaced by elation, "Y-yes! Yes, I mean, if you think you're ready. You guys did hear that, right? Tori, actually wants to ride a dragon!"

"I heard, and I don't think I like it," Agmund narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, earning a stern whisper from Verna.

"I heard, too, and I think it's excellent that you're moving along with your training so well," Stoick commented. "So, Tori, have you a dragon in mind?"

"Actually, I do," Tori nodded, "but first, Hiccup, have you ever seen a dragon like this before?"

Taking the notes and sketches, Hiccup scanned them over carefully. With each page he looked over, he became even more amazed, "Tori, this-this is amazing! We've never encountered anything like this! Where did you find this guy?"

Tori wrapped her arms around herself, sheepishly rubbing them as she replied, "I'm not so sure myself. He was just...there...and then he left."

"What exactly is so _amazing_?_" _Snotlout demanded. He turned (not) smooth as he threw an arm over Tori's shoulders, "I mean, besides you, babe. You're amazing every day, all day."

"Oookay," Hiccup uncomfortably stated before spreading out the notes and sketches. "This, is what's so amazing."

Everyone gathered, and also finally understood the appeal. There body sketches, and even some separate ones of the head, wings, and tail. There were also some notes and even many things that were crossed out until one stood out that was underlined: Triple Stryke.

"'Triple Stryke'?" Fishlegs questioned.

Tori blushed a bit as she anxiously replied, "I didn't know if it was a new species or not, so I came up with a few names just in case. I thought Triple Stryke fit it best..."

Tuffnut and Ruffnut seemed to be thinking it over, but then bluntly said, "Nah."

"Ha! I know!" the Thorston brother exclaimed, "The Tri-Stinger!"

"No! The Tri-Slasher!" cried the Thorston sister.

Hiccup put up his hands, "Now, now. Tori found it first, so she gets to name it. Triple Stryke it is."

Tori smiled and nodded, "I'm glad you think that, Hiccup. And I know it'll be hard and it's really ambitious, but I think I want _this_ dragon to be _my_ dragon."

* * *

**Short Announcement: I would like to say that this dragon appeared in Season 3 of Dragons Race to the Edge. It's quite an interesting Strike-Class Dragon. Also, I'm well aware that I didn't come up with the name of the dragon, but since this isn't a time when it showed up, it's just for the sake of the plotline. I did not come up with the name and it does not belong to me. Anyway, it's going to get really interesting from here on. I hope you enjoy!  
**


	4. Lesson 4: To Trust Your Greatest Fear

**Well, this is a new chapter and I've already read answered reviews from previously deleted chapters, so I'm only doing the disclaimer. I only own my characters (human, dragon, or otherwise) and plot line. Dreamworks owns HTTYD, its characters, dragons, and various references that may be used in my plot line. Thank you. **

It was easy to say that the expedition for the Triple Stryke was not starting out so well even with the decision itself. After learning more about the dragon's nature and seeing the scar from the stinger on Tori's arm, Agmund was fully against it. It took much convincing from many of the people who were all for Tori's advancing in her training. In the end, he (barely) agreed; however, IF she had managed to tame it and train it, he had demanded that he would have a look at the beast to truly see if it were safe for her.

"It was right here when it stung me, and its other stingers hit there and there," Tori explained, pointing at the puncture marks in the cliff before turning and pointing out to the sky, "And then it flew away in that direction."

"The depth in these puncture marks are fascinating," Fishlegs 'geeked out.' "It looks like a lot of force was put into these strikes."

"Good thing I only got a graze of it," she muttered, rubbing a hand along the scar mark.

Snotlout grabbed her hand and patted it, "Don't worry, Tori, that thing isn't going to get away with stinging you. He won't know what hit'im once the Snot-man's done with him."

"I-it's really okay, Snotlout," Tori took her hand away as she explained, "It really was my fault. I shouldn't have startled him."

"That makes sense," Hiccup nodded, "Still, we've been out here plenty of times and there was no sign of a dragon like this. How did he get here?"

"Maybe he lost his way and just decided to rest here."

Hiccup nodded, "Well, it's obvious that we're going to need to head in the direction he flew to try and find him. Riders, mount up!"

The riders made no hesitation...all except for Tori, who caught Snotlout and Tuffnut in her view as did the head of their dragons. They obviously had those looks, and so, Tori quickly said to them, "Sorry, guys. Since the Triple Stryke is most likely a Strike-Class dragon, Hiccup thought it would be better if I flew with him and Toothless, so..."

The raven-haired Viking smiled sheepishly and moved away to the Night Fury as fast as she could. After she was securely on Toothless, she muttered to Hiccup, "Please not too fast. I still need to used to flying."

* * *

"See, Tori? This isn't so bad, right?"

"Y-yeah," she nodded shakily, her only open eye concentrating in the spyglass, searching the island for the Triple Stryke. They had already passed over and circled two islands with no such luck in finding it.

"That's two islands already! Where is this thing?!" Snotlout shouted to the sky, earning a loud shush from Tori.

"We don't want to scare him away. I don't want him seeing us as a threat."

Astrid nodded, "Tori's right. We need to keep quiet or else we'll never find it."

The third island was coming into view and Tori kept a sharp eye out as usual. So far, nothing stood out to her. It was just a normal island: some trees, cliffs, streams, black and blue boulders, beaches, seastacks-

"Wait! I think I see him!" Tori handed the spyglass to Hiccup. He had to take a very good look at the spot she mentioned, but finally saw what she meant.

"Yup, I see him too. Let's get in for a closer look, and remember everyone, this guy's really easy to startle. So let's be careful."

The riders and apprentice soon reached ground level and dismounted. The Vikings went first with the dragons following not far behind, which was probably wise since the Triple Stryke may not be fond of other dragons, especially when they outnumber him.

"I've gotta say, Tori, I'm actually kind of impressed that you want to train this dragon," Astrid whispered, so as not to alert the Triple Stryke of their presence. "Are you sure about this, though? He looks pretty aggressive for your level of training, no offense."

In all honesty, Tori wasn't surprised at this, and she wasn't offended at all. The Triple Stryke didn't exactly scream "friendly" or "docile," and it certainly didn't look like it would submit easily, but Tori was determined. None of them really knew about it, but she honestly felt like she had started making a connection with the dragon up until she startled him.

"I know, but I have to at least try. Besides, I know better now so I'll be more careful."

The walking became more and more slow and careful as they approached a proper brush to hide behind. On the other side, a few yards away, the Triple Stryke was lying down next to a stream, lazily lapping at the water while sunning himself in the open. If he had known about the other dragons and Vikings, he clearly didn't show it.

"Well, it certainly is more impressive in person," Fishlegs nervously commented. Meatlug licked the side of his face in comfort, which was clearly appreciated from him.

"He really is," Tori nodded, then rubbed her arm, right where the scar was, "Even his venom packs a punch..."

The Triple Stryke slowly threw its head back with a large yawn before curling up even further into itself and settling his head down underneath his wings. He appeared to be napping, but of course they had no idea if the dragon was a light sleeper, so caution was mandatory.

"I don't think I ever asked you, Tori, what do you plan on naming him?" Hiccup asked.

"O-Oh! I don't think I've thought about that," Tori hummed a bit in thought. "Well...I don't know. I guess I'll know it when I know it."

"That's what I'm talking about!" Snotlout exclaimed in a volume that wasn't very appropriate for the situation at hand. "Get out there and train that dragon!"

Astrid groans a bit and face palmed while Hiccup and Fishlegs tried not to roll their eyes. The Thorston twins, however, had completely blank stares, as if not knowing what to think. On the one hand, it would be pretty cool to have a dragon like the Triple Stryke around (think of all the destruction). On the other hand, if Tori went out now and dragon became cranky at being woken up, that would not bode well for her. On the _other_ hand though, seeing the Triple Stryke attacking would be awesome...but not if it was Tori who was attacked...

Tori shook her head, "I don't think that's a good idea, Snotlout. I don't even know how to make a connection yet."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Snotlout waved his hand, pushing her out into the open. "Go and show that dragon who's boss!"

"Snotlout!" Hiccup whisper-shouted, even as Tori was already more than halfway across the opening.

Tori sighed, knowing that Snotlout would probably not let her back, so she decided to move forward. She cautiously circled around to the front of the dragon. So far, the dragon seemed to be engrossed in his nap, but from her past experience, he was quicker to react than Astrid during combat training.

_Okay...I know he's pretty bulky, but he still moves pretty fast. _She thought, getting a better look at the dragon. He would have actually looked cute to her if she didn't already know some of what he was capable of...and she was honestly frightened to find out what else he was capable of doing.

"Okay, Tori. That's enough close-up observance. Time to get back to the group," Astrid whispered out for her to hear.

Tori nodded, moving cautiously away from the slumbering creature. Unfortunately, just about ten feet away from the safety of the brush, a dry, thick twig crunched underneath her boot.

_SNAP!_

The dark blue eyes of the Triple Stryke shot open and his head turned sharply towards the source of the sound. The rest of the riders were frozen with shock and Hiccup whispered out, "Tori, don't make any sudden movements. Just come back over here, **_slowly_**."

Tori gulped and nodded as she attempted to make extremely slow strides towards the brush. However, it appeared that the Triple Stryke wasn't going to have any of that.

He was up in an instant, with all three of his tails unwound and ready to strike. Tori peeked over her shoulder and gasped in alarm and her fear was demanding that she run as fast as she could to get away. Even if she had obeyed her instinct, she would have not gotten really far. She squeaked as she was pulled up by the dragon's middle tail. She gulped loudly and shrunk down as she was turned to the dragon's gaze.

Toothless growled and pounced forward, with Hiccup pushing back lightly on his head, "It's alright, bud. Tori's not in any danger, I really hope not..."

"That's incredible! Not only is the Triple Stryke's tail three tails merged as one, but each of them are prehensile as well!" said Fishlegs.

"Really, Fishlegs? This isn't the time!" Astrid harshly stated.

"So? Let's get in there and save my future wife!" Snotlout rose up on Hookfang's back. The Nightmare set himself on fire, determined to fight and win.

"You mean the future Mrs. Thorston!" Tuffnut interrupted, earning a completely audible groan from his sister.

"No, no! We can't attack, we'll be putting Tori more at risk than she already is," Hiccup silenced the other riders. "We have to wait until he let's her go."

Meanwhile, the Triple Stryke sniffed furiously at the familiar Viking. He could smell it! She had fish! He used one of his other tails, or more precisely, the stinger to cut open her bag and send the fish inside plummeting to the dirt. Clearly being satisfied with the fish, he released her and she fell to the ground with a soft thud.

"See? She wasn't in any danger at all. He just wanted her fish."

And indeed he did, chewing away at all four of the fish she had brought with her as a peace offering. She slowly got up and backed away, never turning her back to him while he enjoyed his feast. When she felt there was enough distance between the two, she went right for the brush and fell to her knees, her pants loud and her heart racing.

"That...was...scary..." she gasped out.

"I really don't blame you," Fishlegs said. "He didn't attack you first, though, so it's clear he doesn't see you as a threat...mostly..."

"He doesn't seem like the friendly type, though," Astrid told her, setting a firm hand on her shoulder. "You still sure you can handle it?"

"I...I think so..." she took a deep breath, finally regaining her composure. She shouted wordlessly as she was pulled back through the brush so suddenly, startling some of the riders and the dragons.

She suddenly came face-to-face with the Triple Stryke, his snout pressed into her stomach and sniffing at her furiously. The stinger of his middle tail had punctured her hood, rendering her incapable of really escaping from him. The other riders were nearly ready to strike, but honestly did not expect what was coming next.

The Triple Stryke fell onto his back and threw Tori onto his stomach, but that wasn't even the strangest part. He suddenly began squirming and started...purring?

"Umm, what's going on?!" Tori suddenly squirmed as he set his pincers on her and nudged her face with his snout. His purring grew louder as he licked her face, forcing her to scrunch it in slight disgust.

"Okay...what just happened?" Tuffnut asked.

A sudden thought came across Hiccup and asked, "Tori? You didn't happen to put that marinade of yours on those fish, did you?"

"Actually, I doubled the amount of Dragon Nip in this batch. I just didn't think he'd eat them all at once," she replied right before receiving another lick in the face.

It appeared that the area was safe enough, so the riders came out into the open as well. It was undoubtedly the perfect time to get a closer look at the dragon. Fishlegs ran a hand down the wound-up tails and stated, "These tails are amazing. They also have different coloration for each one. I wonder if that means something..."

"So, Tori, you doing alright up there?" Hiccup asked as Toothless sniffed along the Triple Stryke's wing. He still didn't like the dragon and how close it was to them, but even so, it's not like there was a large amount of danger here.

"We're doing fine. I think Nightshade likes the attention," Tori said, rubbing her hands along the beast's underbelly, which he showed he appreciated with continuous licks to the face.

He tapped a finger on his chin, "Like deadly nightshade. Good choice in name. It definitely fits if that venom does what you told us."

"YEAH!" Tori cringed at Tuffnut and Snotlout's loud applause. "You name that dragon good!"

"Speaking of giving good names, what would you name your kids? I mean, you are the future Mrs. Jorgenson, so I should know what they are," Snotlout casually asked. This got a strong reaction out of the group, all except for Tori. At least, it wasn't strong at first.

"Oh, that's an easy one. If I had a girl I would name her Eyra, and I had a boy-wait, what?" She suddenly became fully aware of the question. "I don't recall ever agreeing to any engagement!"

Tuffnut let out a breath in relief, "That's great! That means you can still be the future Mrs. Thorston!"

"Okay, Hiccup, is it actually a good thing that I'm more afraid of them right now than I am of Nightshade?"

"Uh...I think it's safe to say yes," he nodded. "Well, speaking of which, We should probably get going before the Dragon Nip wears off and Nightshade stops being so friendly."

"I understand," Tori wheezed a bit as she crawled out from underneath the claws of the Triple Stryke. She patted his belly and said, "Bye, Nightshade. See you again soon."

* * *

And so, it turned out that the fish enhanced with extra Dragon Nip was just the trick with helping Tori to gain Nightshade's trust. Every day from that first day, it was the same basic routine: land on the same island, allow Nightshade to eat all of the fish, let him be affectionate while at the same time getting to know him better and in turn letting Nightshade get to know Tori a bit more.

Many of the times, all of the riders had gone to see the Triple Stryke as well. There were also some times when it was just Tori and Hiccup, especially on days in which Snotlout and Tuffnut had become a little too affectionate as well. This day, after about two weeks of the same routine, was no different.

"I think he's starting to really trust me," Tori said, stroking Nightshade's snout that was laying in her lap. He had pupils that were only dilated a tad, indicating that the Dragon Nip was not affecting his senses, at least not all that much, "I've even been decreasing the amount of Dragon Nip in the salve."

"That's good to hear. If you're up to finding a way to get it done, we can even move him to Berk today. To the cove where he can get used to the island."

"W-well, yeah! Yeah! I would love to have Nightshade on Berk!" Tori grinned, hugging onto the wide head of the Triple Stryke. He merely grunted, not entirely happy about the physical contact, but also didn't mind the touch of the Viking that gave him fish. "But how are we going to get him to come to Berk with us?"

"Well, how have you been getting him to listen to you so far?"

Tori instantly understood what Hiccup wanted her to do, "Oh. Okay, but I'll need to get some more fish."

She stood up and let Nightshade's head fall to the ground. He lifted his head up, tilting it in confusion before following her with a distinct amount of curiosity. However, he didn't like it when she grabbed her weapon: a bow and a quiver of arrows. Nightshade narrowed his eyes and jumped back a bit, his tails unwinding slowly in preparation for an attack.

"Uh, Tori? I think you meant to grab your fishing rod, not your bow and arrows."

"No. I know what I'm doing. Trust me," she told him, walking to the stream with arrows ready to fire. Hiccup and Toothless shared questionable looks before following behind, as did Nightshade, all for the sake of curiosity.

Tori pulled the arrow back into the position of the arrow rest, her violet eyes focused on the surface of the water. It didn't seem like she was going to make a move, especially since there didn't appear to be any fish at all. Suddenly, she let loose the arrow into the water, making Nightshade's head shoot back and his ear-like appendages perk sharply. With the string still sticking out of the water, Tori yanked at it, bringing back the arrow...which was through the tail of a brown trout.

"Wow. You know, I never knew you were skilled in archery, let alone bowfishing, Tori."

Tori shrugged, "Never really socialized enough for you guys to know about it. I guess it's something that could come in handy with my training-Hey! No!"

Unknown to the rest of them, Nightshade was inching towards the brown trout. By the time Tori had noticed his presence, he already had his mouth open, just inches away from the delicious snack. Nightshade churred before reaching for the fish again, but Tori pulled it away again.

"You can have this fish when we get to Berk."

* * *

"And...here we are! The Isle of Berk!" Hiccup welcomed Nightshade as the trainers and their respective dragons landed within the confines of the cove. The instant Tori dismounted Toothless, Nightshade was nudging at her, his tongue licking desperately at the trout that still dangled from the arrow.

"Okay, you were good, so here's your reward," she smiled, removing the fish from her arrow. His tongue grabbed onto the trout, gulping it down with one swallow before settling down on the ground to sleep. After all, it was quite a flight from that island all the way to Berk.

"Well, now you can come visit and bond more with Nightshade any time you want. Maybe we can even get you on his back one of these days and get you into the air."

Tori frowned a bit, glancing slightly at Nightshade's sleeping form, "Assuming he'll stay."

Hiccup frowned as well, understanding her concern, but patted her shoulder in comfort, "Hey, he actually followed you all the way here, didn't he? If he didn't trust you, he would have given a second thought, but he didn't. I'm sure he'll stick around."

She smiled just a bit and then cleared her throat, "Well, I should be getting home. It's starting to get late."

"Toothless and I can give you a lift home, if you want."

She nodded, "Thanks. Just one second."

The raven-haired Viking silently walked over to the Triple Stryke, kneeling before him and patting his facial horn, "Good night, Nightshade. See you in the morning."

She gave a light kiss on his horn before dashing off, mounting the Night Fury right behind Hiccup. Toothless took off with a quiet flap of his wings, taking them from the cove to the village.

Just a few hours later...

Tori yawned, sitting up in her bed and stretching out her arms. She took in a deep, calming breath before jumping out of bed and grabbing onto her bow and arrow, right in the corner of the room. She went to the door before whispering back, "Shoo! Come on, we've gotta go see Nightshade before dragon training starts!"

The violet Terror got up, arching its back with a yawn letting out a little sneeze. He shook out his wings before taking off after his trainer, climbing into his favorite spot of all time: Tori's hood. He popped his head right out and laid it down right on her left shoulder. It took a lot of control and stealth, but she did manage to sneak out of the house at a time before even her father would be up.

Upon going outside, Tori could tell that something was wrong, mainly because three of the seven barrels of fish that were next to her house that her father had caught the previous day were no longer there. What's more, it appeared one of them were laying on its side, empty, at the bottom of the small incline that lead to her home. Cautiously, she made her way downwards to investigate further.

"GET IT DOWN!"

It wasn't necessarily the voice of the Viking, nor the grunts of what sounded like other men of the village, but the familiar roar that forced Tori to sprint down the hill and into the village square. She skidded to a stop before gasping,

"STOP! Don't hurt him!"

There, just a few yards away, Nightshade was struggling under the ropes of the men who were attempting to pin him to the ground. Right beneath him was a cracked barrel with some fish still left over and even a few had only a few bite marks on them.

"Wait! He didn't mean it!" Tori pleaded as she came up to them. "Bucket! Mulch! You believe me, don't you?"

Mulch wheezed a bit as he tried keep trying to keep a firm grip on the rope holding Nightshade's left pincer, "I want to believe you, Tori, but this fella's been chewin' on all the fish! We had to stop him!"

"Let me calm him down! He's my dragon," she said, slowly coming into the dragon's peripheral vision. He caught eye of her and momentarily, but immediately went back to thrashing and bucking to get away from the ropes. She took a deep breath, taking one cautious step at a time while gently telling him, "Nightshade, it's okay. Nobody's here to hurt you. Please calm down."

Nightshade merely growled and snapped his jaws, not moving to bite her, but to give a very distinct warning. She flinched back a bit, her hand pulled and closed against her chest. Gulping, she reached out again, her palm outstretched to make contact with the Triple Stryke's snout, the ultimate sign of gaining a dragon's trust just as Hiccup had taught her.

_Dragon training begins and ends with trust..._

"It's okay, Nightshade. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and turning away as she left her palm open, waiting for the dragon to meet her the rest of the way.

_...both yours..._

Nightshade's dark blue eyes opened up, his pupils dilating just a tad and his growling to cease. He kept shifting his gaze from her to her hand. He leaned forward, lightly sniffing, before pressing his snout to her hand with a light purr.

_...and the dragon's._

Tori turned slowly, glancing to him as he did the same. She smiled slightly, patting him with her other hand, at least until she heard the gruff sound of a throat being cleared. Turning to them, Tori shrunk down a bit at the glares of the hardworking fishermen that went to all the trouble to catch the fish that was now in Nightshade's stomach.

"Um...I'm really sorry, everyone, I know he didn't...it's just that he's never...I swear I will replace all of the fish that got eaten and ruined."

"I'm sure you will," one of then nodded. "And be sure ta take that monstrous beast with ya so he can't cause any more trouble."

Tori's eyes widened a bit before narrowing it at them, "Fine, but for your information, he's not monstrous or a beast! He just doesn't understand yet. He's never been around people. Come on, Nightshade. Let's go."

Tori began walking away towards the docks, and Nightshade followed closely behind. Mulch sighed as the other fishermen went about to clean up the mess, "C'mon, Bucket. Let's get this place-Bucket? Bucket?"

"Mulch! It's doing no good! It won't stay down!"

Bucket was on his stomach as he was dragged across the square, the rope he was clinging to tied onto Nightshade's pincer. Mulch facepalmed and sighed, "Bucket! Tori's already handled it! You can let go now!"


	5. Lesson 5: Taking Trust to a New Level I

**It's been a while, I know. So...no review responses this time (not that any of you actually read them; I just put it up as a tribute of appreciation to the fans of my stories). Anyway, I own my characters and storyline, and everything else belongs to Dreamworks. Enjoy.**

"I already don't like this beast," Agmund shook his head, his eyes not leaving the space where seven barrels of fish that he had caught himself were now reduced to four. After what he was told what had happened to all of the fish and how Tori had came in to stop the dragon, he wasn't all too pleased, especially when he was told that they had allowed Tori to re-catch the lost fish, alone, with that same dragon.

"Agmund, the dragon took some of your fish. It's not the end of the world," Stoick said to him.

"Besides, Tori said so herself: Nightshade isn't used to people. He didn't know he was stealing it," Hiccup told him, trying to appease Tori's father. The training was coming along so well, especially when it came to her father's comfortability with her being around something she feared so greatly. Now, because of Nightshade and how aggressive he appeared, he was starting to reconsider, but Hiccup was confident that they could power through it. He hoped so, anyway...

Agmund glanced at the boy, "That's not what concerns me. I know what my daughter having a dragon will do, Hiccup. If this dragon, this 'Nightshade,' behaves poorly around the village, it'll be Tori who'll take the brunt of the blame. I'll not have my daughter be seen as irresponsible all because of a beast she can't control!"

Stoick furrowed his eyebrows, but his eyes were not on Agmund nor his son, "Seems like she's got'im under control to me."

Tori rolled up one barrel of fish up the hill with a minimal amount of effort. Behind her, Nightshade shoved one barrel with his snout, had two tied together on his back, three wrapped up in each of his tails and one more cradled in his pincers. For anyone that had witnessed the earlier situation, they could tell that there was a complete transformation. Tori seemed to have more of a authoritative grip on the dragon and Nightshade appeared to be more compliant with his trainer's requests.

"I think this should cover all of the fish that got ruined," Tori grunted softly as she tilted her barrel up into its proper position. Nightshade churred, nudging her in the back, almost like an apology. Almost. She patted his facial horn and went to stand his barrel up, "It's okay. You're still learning."

"Well I'll be," she looked over her shoulder, seeing the approaching trio of men: her mentor, her chief, and of course, her father. Stoick couldn't help but grin in pride as he went on, "So, this is the dragon you've chosen to be your own. I have to say, I didn't think you had what it took to tame it. Glad you proved me wrong."

"Yeah, this is quite an improvement, Tori," Hiccup said, still actually not believing his eyes. He knew it was possible, but he didn't think Tori could pull it off on her own, and so fast too. "What happened? He didn't look this eager to listen to you yesterday."

Tori smiled a little and rubbed her arm sheepishly, "It's actually really strange, or funny. It happened after we went out to sea to catch the fish. Every time I caught some, he would always take a bite out of them and spit them back out. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and I just lost it. I just yelled at him to keep away from the fish, and even pushed him away when he tried to get close. After that, he didn't touch any of the fish. I guess he doesn't like it when I get angry."

This definitely surprised Hiccup to some extent. Nightshade was no doubt a powerful, willful, and even an ornery dragon at times. To think that after one day of being on Berk that he would become so compliant and calm was not what he expected. Then again, he thought similarly about Toothless with their first few encounters.

"Well, I'm glad you managed to find a way to get him to listen," Hiccup told her. "I'm sure he'll make a great addition to the team."

"Dear, I thought there were only five barrels missing this morning."

Tori looked back at the barrels wrapped within his three tails and merely replied, "There were. Those three are for Nightshade. He's a big dragon, you know. He's got a big appetite."

Agmund narrowed his eyes, approaching the dragon for closer inspection. Nightshade, on the other hand, tilted his head and sniffed the air around him. Upon looking him up and down, he turned to his daughter and said, "Well, I can't say I approve of him after what he did to you, but if he really means that much to you, I suppose I can give it a chance. Be warned though, dragon, that if you put'er in harms way, I'll have yer hide and head on my wall."

Tori smiled and wrapped her arms around her father, "Thanks, dad. I know you won't regret this. He'll become part of the family in no time at all."

"Awesome!" They turned and saw the youngest Korrinston, Blyn, rushing down the path to get a better look at his sister's new dragon. "That is so cool!"

"He, Blyn," Tori smiled at her brother, releasing Agmund from her hug. "Nightshade is a he."

"Cool!" he recklessly jumped up, grabbing onto Nightshade's horn and dangling their in the air while getting a better look at him. Nightshade went cross-eyed trying to keep the boy in his line of vision. He narrowed his eyes and bobbed his head lightly to shake him off, but Blyn managed to hold on. So he growled lightly and tried again, and though Blyn still refused to let go, it was enough for Tori to step in.

"Okay Blyn, that's enough. Nightshade and I need to get these fish to storage and then we need to get to dragon training."

"Yup. We've got a big days ahead of us today. Today, I think you two are ready to start flying."

* * *

"Hiccup, I don't think I'm ready for this," Tori gulped, standing before Nightshade in front of Gobber's in order for him to receive his new saddle. Of course, with a new saddle would right after begin her flying tutorial. After riding on Toothless, she was comfortable enough being in the air, but being on a dragon she hardly knew? That's what made her stomach do flips.

"Nonsense!" Gobber exclaimed, dragging out the brown leather saddle that had been custom-made for Nightshade. "If you can tame this beast in under a day, then flyin' 'im will be easy!"

"Technically it was about two weeks and half a day," she muttered out, her violet eyes trained on the dirt below her boots.

"Oh, come on, Tori," Hiccup said to her calmly. "You've gotten this far, haven't you? I'm sure you'll be just fine."

Gobber threw the saddle onto Nightshade's back, and the dark blue eyes of the dragon narrowed as did the pupils. With a gruff growl, he stabbed into the seat of the saddle with his tails and threw it off of his back and onto the ground.

"Hey!" Gobber humphed, coming to the dragon's face, "Ya know how long it took ta make that saddle?! Show some respect!"

Nightshade hissed lightly, stopping only when Hiccup came between them, one hand on Gobber's shoulder and the other on the Triple Stryke's snout, "Now, now. This isn't a big deal. Nightshade's just not used to a rider to carry around, so of course he's not going to like the saddle at first. We just have to...keep trying."

However, Hiccup was starting to lose confidence each and every time the saddle was placed on his back and he threw it off. Sometimes he did it with his pincers, other times with his tail, and their was even once when he just thrashed and bucked until it came off.

Tori sighed dejectedly, her back hitting the trunk-like corner of the forge and sliding down until she was just sitting, "I really appreciate this, you guys, but maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all..."

"What? Oh, no no no, Tori!" Hiccup almost panicked, but still tried to remain calm as he pleaded with her. Meanwhile, Nightshade had snapped out of his irritated stupor at the mixture of sadness and anger in the voice of his trainer. "Don't worry, we can make this work! Trust me!"

"It's not you I don't trust, Hiccup," she replied to him. Her head tilted back until she hit the wall and stated, "I just don't think I have it in me to do this..."

Nightshade tilted his head, not understanding why his rider was so unhappy. He approached her cautiously before nudging her arm in comfort, only to have him be pushed away, "It's okay, Nightshade. I know you don't like the saddle."

Toothless hummed loudly, nudging her other side, which earned a sigh from Tori before she patted his head. Nightshade narrowed his eyes at the Night Fury before casting his glance at the discarded saddle. He growled before reluctantly laying down right in front of the saddle, waiting for the monstrous device to be put on his back.

"Well, that's more like it!" Tori and Hiccup looked up at Gobber, who had successfully set the saddle on the Triple Stryke's back. And now, even as the blacksmith strapped it on, Nightshade didn't make any fuss. Gobber stepped back, admiring his handiwork, "Looks like a perfect match ta me."

The Triple Stryke stood up, shifting restlessly at how uncomfortable the saddle was on his back. Tori stood up and smiled a bit, running a hand on his snout as she comforted, "It's okay, Nightshade. You're going to be okay."

He merely huffed, but did cease his shifting. Tori gasped as she was shoved from underneath right up onto Nightshade's saddle. She looked back down and saw Toothless with a big, gummy smile as he continued to push her up and up until she was thrown across the saddle.

"Uh...how's it feeling up there, Tori?" Hiccup asked awkwardly. He did admit that Toothless was probably a little too eager with getting Tori on her new dragon, but it was a tad unnecessary. Then again, she would have needed to get on the dragon one way or another.

Tori pushed herself up and blew out a breath of reluctant air, "It feels...okay. I don't know. I've never done this before..."

"Well there's one way to find out for sure," Hiccup mounted Toothless and the two took off into the air before hovering in the air. "Come on, Tori! If you don't want to be late to dragon training again, there's only one way to do it."

"I was really hoping you wouldn't say that..." Tori gulped a bit before settling into her saddle. She knew that delaying things would only make Hiccup persist more, and thus go to more drastic stakes than this, so she might as well try now. "Nightshade, up!"

The Triple Stryke looked around boredly, yawning a bit with disinterest. Tori growled just a little bit, but then had an idea, "Shoo, come out here!"

Giving out a tiny yawn, Shoo shook himself off and climbed out onto her shoulder, "Shoo, go up to Hiccup."

Tori patted Nightshade's head, catching his attention and making him look at her as best as he could from her location just as Shoo was taking off. She pointed at him before pointing up at the retreating Terrible Terror. Thankfully, Nightshade's eyes followed her direction up to where Hiccup and the other two dragons were.

"Whoa!" Tori yelped, grabbing onto the reins of the saddle as Nightshade took off into the air. He stopped at the same altitude as Hiccup and Toothless, though Tori had to use all of her concentration and strength to keep on the saddle while her dragon's body shook with each beat of his wings.

"It's okay, it's okay. You'll get used to that," Hiccup told her. All too suddenly, however, Nightshade locked eyes with Toothless and felt the jealousy he felt just minutes ago burn back through his blood. He narrowed his dark blue eyes at him before taking off away from the Night Fury and his rider.

"Tori! Where are you going?!"

Tori didn't dare look behind her as she was clinging tightly onto the saddle, but managed to reply to him in the form of a panicked yell, "I have no idea!"

"Ah, come on, bud," Toothless growled before shooting off right after the Triple Stryke. Hiccup had to admit that Tori was really onto something when she hypothesized that the Triple Stryke was a Strike Class dragon. He certainly was a fast one, especially if even Toothless was challenged too keep up with him.

"Nightshade! Please slow down!" Tori pressed herself closer to the saddle and closed her eyes.

Meanwhile, Hiccup and Toothless as nearly close to catching up with them. He honestly had no idea why Nightshade had reacted the way he did, but he knew that he was obviously used to flying like this; however, Tori was most definitely **not**. Now if only he could get close enough to them...

"Need some help?" Astrid asked as she and Stormfly sped right next to him. Snotlout and Hookfang suddenly flew right past them, fire blazing and all.

"Don't worry, babe! The Snot-man's coming!"

That, with no surprise, was something that Tori doubted without a second thought. She barely heard him behind her to begin with, and Nightshade was starting to gain even more speed as they got further out to sea. She felt completely powerless to stop her own dragon and didn't want to think what would happen if she fell off Nightshade's back.

"Nightshade! This is fun and all, but don't you think you'd like to stop and catch some fish?" Tori yelled out to him, and though it didn't appear that he heard her, an idea suddenly came to her, "Fish! My marinade!"

She reached into her bag, grabbing a herring that was coated in the last dosage of her strongest marinade. It was on a particularly small fish, but it should be enough to at least calm him down. She scooted herself forward a bit before dangling the fish as close to his nose as she could. His nostrils flared, making him turn his head and his pupils dilate once again. He threw his head back a bit and snatched the fish into his mouth and consumed it wholeheartedly.

The good news from that was that Nightshade had landed on a nearby sea stack and managed to calm down. The bad news was that he had stopped much too fast for Tori to grab onto the saddle. She screamed as she was thrown off his back...and quite frankly, nearly off of the sea stack itself.

_This...was a horrible idea on my part..._Tori thought, gasping for air as she looked over her shoulder, down at the ocean that was very, very far beneath her dangling feet. She knew that the Dragon Nip would make Nightshade useless at this point, and her hands were doing okay with hanging from the edge of the sea stack for right now, but it wouldn't last very long. She struggled to get herself up, but her boots kept slipping, unable to get the proper footing to push herself up.

"Papa Snotlout's a comin'!" cried the Jorgenson, landing his flaming Nightmare on the edge of the sea stack. Of course, whether she was afraid of dragons or not, she would still have been startled to an extreme at his landing. She screamed and lost her grip, sending her plummeting towards the ocean.

"Gotcha!" she grunted as she was caught and was swiftly ascending. She was breathing heavily as the dragons and their riders landed on the sea stack, she clinging onto Tuffnut while atop Belch's neck at the intense experience of near death.

"Tori, are you alright?" Hiccup asked, obviously concerned but also a bit afraid that that incident would become a major setback to her training.

"I-I've been better..." she whimpered just a bit.

_No, no, no! This can't be happening!_ Hiccup quickly responded to her, "Don't worry, we'll figure out what went wrong! We can fix this-"

"Snotlout! Why did you do that?!" Tori asked frantically, turning to the Jorgenson who seemed smug at first, but then startled. "You and Hookfang scared me nearly to death! And then I almost fell to my death!"

The other riders looked at each other a bit strangely before Fishlegs inquired, "So...it doesn't bother you that Nightshade nearly threw you off the edge of a sea stack?"

"Huh? No," she shook her head. "I shouldn't have tried giving him the marinated fish while we were in mid-flight. That's something worth knowing about."

"Okay, but that still doesn't explain why Nightshade took off in the first place," Hiccup said, looking at the Triple Stryke that was only half-paying attention.

Tori caught on and said, "Oh, right. I forgot. I think he's just jealous."

"Uh, jealous?"

Tori sighed, pushing herself out of Tuffnut's grip and jumping to the ground, earning from the Thorston, "Hey! I was actually starting to enjoy that..."

However, the Korrinston ignored that comment and knelt down next to Toothless stroking his head and under his chin. The Night Fury purred rather loudly at the attention, though that wasn't to say that Nightshade shared his contentment. He caught the scene from the corner of his dark blue eyes which were full of bliss from the herring, but that bliss quickly turned into said jealously as he growled and picked himself up with his three tails unwinding.

Many of the other riders and their dragons stepped back, afraid of getting so much as a small sting from those tails. Tori smiled a bit before stepping away from Toothless, easing the Triple Stryke's jealousy slightly. And she did mean _slightly_.

Tori gasped a bit as his three tails grabbed her, pulling her close to him while he glared at the rest of the dragons. Tori wheezed a bit, but said with a small sheepish smile, "See? He's just a bit jealous..."

* * *

"That dragon did WHAT?!" Agmund could barely contain his anger and indignation after the story his daughter had told her in her flying tutorial. He had just now startled his entire family by standing up abruptly and slamming his palms on the dinner table.

"Agmund, please! Not at the dinner table!" scolded Verna.

Agmund turned to his wife, incredulous as to what he was hearing, "Verna! Did you not hear how our daughter was nearly killed because of that beast! I knew this wasn't a good idea from the start!"

"But dad-!"

"No!" he cut her off. "I don't want ta hear another word of this! Tomorrow, ye'll be tellin' Hiccup that there'll be no more dragons near you ever again! No more dragon training, and no more dragons in this household, either!"

"But what about Shoo and Nightshade? I've just started to really bond with them!"

The Viking's eyes hardened as he replied, "I'm sorry, but they need to go. I'll not have you risking your life for such nonsense."

"Please, dad! It wasn't Nightshade's fault!" Tori pleaded, panicking at the idea of giving up her new scaly friends. "It was mine! I made a stupid mistake, but it won't happen again!"

"I know it won't. Ye won't be in any position te be makin' those mistakes again!" Tori cringed as he slammed a fist down on the table. "Starting tomorrow morning, those two dragons, or any other dragon, are not to be near you or this house. That's _final_."

Tori had not noticed that tears were beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes, but when she did, she abruptly pushed herself away from the table and stormed up the stairs to her room. Slamming the door shut, Tori pushed her back against the door, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and let her tears loose, sobbing softly to herself.

Shoo, peacefully napping on his trainer's bed, blinked his eyes sleepily before stretching. He perked at the distressed sounds of his rider and sprung into action, prancing towards her before perching on her knees. Tori sniffled a bit before lifting her head to face her small, scaly friend.

"It really isn't fair, Shoo. You didn't do anything wrong," she whispered, rubbing behind his small horns, which he clearly enjoyed. He hummed contently, rubbing his body against her. Tori smiled a little bit, but then frowned, now thinking of her other dragon that was currently absent. "And Nightshade...he doesn't deserve to be sent away because of a mistake I made..."

She stood up and went to her bed, reaching underneath and pulling out the Book of Dragons. She flipped through the pages until she reached the newest of the Strike Class dragons.

_Not much is currently known about the Triple Stryke. In terms of stealth and speed, it is formidable. The intelligence it possesses is also above average among dragons, going as far as to use all of his appendages for survival, including its large pincers and prehensile is considerable ornery in nature, but also very proud and powerful. Each of its tails is of a different color, though it is not confirmed if each tail has a different venom. Only one venom has been confirmed, which quickly numbs its target completely and makes them unable to attack or defend itself.  
_

Tori smiled just a little, "He's not that bad. Nightshade's such a sweet thing, at least to me he is...I have to convince my father to let you guys stay."

* * *

The moon was at its peak by the time Tori decided to make her move, but she really had no choice. Her parents were now fast asleep and it was safe for her to leave. Getting out was relatively easy, and now she could not waste time making her way to the Dragon Academy. It was not necessarily difficult...just extremely time consuming.

With a sharp intake of breath, Tori used all of her strength to pull the lever to the gates of the Dragon Training Academy. The loud clanking of the chains sounded, but ended quickly as she darted down into the arena. Unknown to her, the sound was not unheard from the village...

* * *

Toothless' ear plates perked up as he heard a subtle clanking sound. He lifted his head and looked around, searching for the source of the noise. It wasn't coming from inside the house, so it must have been coming from outside...

* * *

Hookfang and Barf and Belch had awoken at the sound of the gate opening. They lifted their heads to see Tori entering the arena, which of course made them just a bit excited.

"Hi, Hookfang," Tori smiled, handing out a marinade-soaked perch, which he happily gulped down before thumping down into sleep. She patted his snout before turning to the Hiddeous Zippleback.

"Barf. Belch," Tori greeted, pulling out a pair of identical trout. Their pupils dilated before snatching them from her grasp and swallowing them whole. Much like Hookfang, they went right to sleep.

With a deep sigh, she turned to enter the pen of the final dragon resting in the arena: Nightshade. She entered in on the slumbering Triple Stryke, who had yet to acknowledge his trainer and the despair she felt in her heart.

"Nightshade. Nightshade, wake up," she whispered softly, stroking along his ear plate. The beast stirred in his sleep, blinking his eyes open before glancing at who had woken him up. He hissed lightly and stood at seeing his trainer, pushing his snout into her stomach. She greeted him with a smile and a rubbing on his facial horn, but then frowned deeply and sat down on the ground. The dragon started to panic slightly, fearing that he had done something to upset his new friend and trainer, and so whined and pressed his head against her.

"Nightshade, you need to know this," she whispered, looking him right in his eyes with tears beginning to gather in the corner of hers, "I won't let something like this break us apart, but...no matter what happens, even if we have to go our separate ways, I want you to know that it is not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine."

It wouldn't really appear that Nightshade understood what she had said, or that he knew what was going on; however, he didn't need to understand to know that something was wrong. His rider was upset about something and he felt helpless in not being able to help her. Suddenly, his pupils shrunk as he growled loudly over her shoulder.

Tori turned around, finding herself relieved at their uninvited, but not unwanted, guest. The Night Fury had poked his head through the entrance, looking for the one who had entered the arena in case it was an intruder. He was surprised, yet relieved to see that it was only the academy's newest student.

"Toothless, what a surprise. What are you doing here?"

Toothless merely let out a churr and stepped further into the pen. Nightshade, being the jealous dragon he is, had decided to growl loudly and curl his tails around Tori's waist, to which she replied, "Nightshade, that's enough. Toothless is our friend."

She patted his head before removing his tails from her body. She stroked the head of the friendly Night Fury, drawing out a loud purr from the back of his throat, "I wish I had a fish for you, but this was really unexpected."

All too suddenly, Toothless tensed and his ear plates shot up, twitching as he looked around frantically. The stranger thing was that Nightshade had done the exact same thing. Both dragons were nervous for a reason and Tori doubted it was anything good. Toothless suddenly growled before he roughly nudged Tori with his head towards the exit, "Toothless, what's wrong? What's going on?"

The only reply he gave was grabbing onto her satchel and began to swiftly drag her out of the the arena. Tori had given out a startled yelp at first, but then was more concerned with holding onto dear life. By the time Toothless had gotten her across the bridge to the village, he was suddenly stopped by a rough tackle, forcing him to release his hold on Tori. She grunted as she was tossed across the ground, pushing herself up to see an unusual sight.

Nightshade was perched on top of Toothless' abdomen, hissing viciously at him as the Night Fury struggled to try to get him off.

_Typical jealous dragon..._ Tori mentally commented, getting to her knees as she continued to wonder, _Still, though...as terrifying as that was, a dragon like Toothless wouldn't go that far unless something was really wrong._

The two dragons suddenly stopped as the ground started to tremble. Toothless roared at Tori, seeming to be telling her to run, but it was far too late for that. The ground between the Viking and the two dragons broke, creating a cloud of dirt, but that didn't last for very long. Tori coughed a bit, clearing the dirt from her face, but gasped quite audibly upon seeing the very large, very intimidating Whispering Death that had emerged from the ground.

_Don't make any sudden movements. Don't make a sound,_ Tori mentally chanted in her head, over and over as if it were the only thing keeping the dragon from killing her. That's exactly what she did, stayed still and silent, but even with that, the Whispering Death had turned sharply, narrowing its pure white eyes at her. Its rotating teeth whirled in anticipation as he lurched back to strike.


	6. Lesson 6: Taking Trust to a New Level II

**Okay, so before I start things, I want to make an announcement about answering reviews. Unless they are from guests, I will be answering the reviews personally via Private Message. Anyway, time to move on. **

**The SkrillRider- I will be sure to continue and do you all proud. **

**MMM- to answer your question, yes there will be a sequel, but I can't predict when it will be up. We still have a bit to go through with this story, but I hope to have the first chapter (at least) of the sequel up by Christmas. With college classes, it's kind of hard to keep updates frequent, but I'll try my best. **

**I own nothing but my characters, storyline, etc. Everything else belongs to Dreamworks. **

You know how a person's life flashes before their eyes? Tori couldn't even think of what she saw since she was more concerned with the fact that an aggressive, limbless dragon was about to rip her apart with its razor-sharp, rotating teeth. It all appeared to go down in slow motion: the Whispering Death lurched back to strike, but as it did, a bright violet ball of light struck at the side of its head. It shrieked in pain, shaking its head violently to clear its vision.

Toothless finally managed to shove Nightshade off of him, firing another plasma blast at the Whispering Death. The Boulder Class dragon hissed before retreating back underneath the ground. Tori was wide-eyed and panting heavily, feeling like she had gone into shock, mainly because she felt as if everything had gone silent. Even when Toothless and Nightshade came to her side, roaring at her to move before the Whispering Death came back, she heard nothing.

All too suddenly, however, the ground underneath her began to crack and crumble, before it gave way to the weight of Tori and the dragons. Before Tori even knew she was falling, she yelped in pain as she landed on her back, several yards away from the surface. She winced as she sat up, with pain shooting up her spine as she got to her feet and looked up, already knowing that she wouldn't be able to climb her way out. Toothless and Nightshade both groaned as they lifted themselves from the dirt, shaking themselves off to observe their situation as well.

"That Whispering Death must have tunneled right under us. We need to get out of here before it comes back," Tori stated, just seeing how dire the situation was. They were all quite a bit from the surface and the hole was too steep for any of them to climb out. Nightshade could get out just fine, and Tori could do the same by being with him on his back; however, then were would that leave Toothless?

It was clear to Tori that Nightshade's jealousy blinded him to the fact that Toothless was an ally and needed help. In other words, Nightshade would help Tori, but would more than likely leave Toothless behind without a second thought. With that in mind, there was only one way for all of them to get out of that hole before the Whispering Death returned...

Tori turned to the Night Fury, who was looking up and seeing the problem for himself. He then turned to Tori with a churr and a tilt of his head, obviously thinking the exact thing...except he was willing to go through with it, but was Tori?

"I...I can't, Toothless," she whispered out, hugging herself tightly at the uncomfortable possibility of reliving the day's earlier events with Nightshade. "I'm sorry, but...I'm just too afraid..."

The Night Fury lowered his head a bit, somehow anticipating that answer, but still had high hopes that she would overcome her fear. Nonetheless, if Tori couldn't help him fly out and Nightshade wouldn't cooperate, they would just have to find another hole to escape through.

Tori sighed heavily, lifting her head to gaze down the labyrinth of tunnels that rested beneath Berk, "Well, we can't just stand here and wait for that Whispering Death to come back. We need to find another way out of here."

She squinted down into the tunnels, hoping to gather some sort of direction, but had no such luck, "I can't see a thing down here. I don't suppose you two can see, can you?"

Toothless looked around, his eyes finally resting on a thick branch embedded into the dirt. With a single shot of his plasma blast, a fire was lit on the tip and the area around them became much brighter. Tori and Nightshade turned at the sound before Toothless looked at Tori with a purr.

"Thanks, Toothless," Tori smiled a bit, patting his head before grabbing the torch. "That really helps."

Nightshade narrowed his eyes and frantically looked around before finding another branch. He shot at it with a bright blast of fire, lighting it up within seconds. He turned back to his rider excitedly, only to have it die out at seeing her and Toothless already making their way through the cave without him. Growling lowly, he used his tail to grab the torch and quickly follow them.

He nudged the back of his rider and growled softly, easily gaining her attention. He held the torch to her for the taking. Tori smiled and said, "Good idea, Nightshade. We could use all the light we can get in _this_ place."

Tori continued on ahead, leaving the Triple Stryke disheartened, yet not completely undone. Tori was _his_ rider and he was _her _dragon, not Toothless! One way or another, he would prove that to her.

The group had gone through at least a mile of tunnel, and still couldn't find an exit that accommodate all three of them. It was so late, according to the light that came from the holes above, that it seemed to be closer to early morning. With hardly any sleep and walking the entire night, all three of them were getting more and more exhausted.

"This isn't working. At this rate, we'll never find a way out."

The three froze as the grand began to rumble. Tori looked over her shoulder and saw a brown cloud approaching them, and very quickly as well. Random dust storms are very rare, especially for Berk. But random dust clouds, on Berk, or more specifically, _**under**_ Berk was not something to take lightly.

"It's back!" Tori cried, taking off away from the Whispering Death rampaging through the tunnels. The Night Fury and Triple Stryke followed her lead, now wanting to be in the path of the angry dragon; however, one of them had a completely different idea of how to escape.

Toothless narrowed his eyes as he picked up the pace, right until he was behind Tori. He lowered his head and threw her over top of him with a yelp. She struggled to get herself upright, but in doing so, her foot latched into the appropriate place for Toothless to be able to take flight. And Toothless was going to take advantage of that.

"TOOTHLESS!" Tori screeched as he leapt onto the edge of the hole before shooting up into the air. He flew with all his might in order to safely escape the Whispering Death, but it wasn't necessarily going to be with how tenacious they were.

And, just as predicted, the Whispering Death shot out of the ground right after them, blowing out multiple rings of fire at them. Toothless flipped and swerved to avoid the flames, but it still wasn't enough to lose the Boulder class dragon. In fact, the Whispering Death seemed to get even angrier at them and rose the spikes on its entire body. It jerked its body, throwing up a fury of spines up at them, most of which Toothless managed to evade. One spine, however, just so happened to hit and break the strand of leather that connected the stirrup to Toothless' tail.

Tori screamed and Toothless roared out in distress as they began to plummet to the ground and fast. Tori pulled onto the reins, trying to steer them both to a bit of a safer location, but it wasn't enough to prevent them from crashing through the trees and out into an open meadow with Tori being thrown off of the Night Fury's back and a good ten yards away from him. She groaned as she pushed herself up off of the ground, rubbing her arm at how sore it became from the fall. She froze as the Whispering death crashed down onto the ground, its head spikes flattening and its eyes narrowing as it intended to attack.

Nightshade landed between the two, hissing at the wild dragon with determination to keep himself between it and Tori. The Whispering Death had been taken aback a the sudden appearance of the Triple Stryke, but nonetheless it didn't back off. Its rotating teeth swirled in anticipation as it struck to bite Nightshade, but missed as he jumped behind it. Tori watched as her dragon swerved behind the Whispering Death to avoid its gaze as it tried to locate it. When it felt that the Triple Stryke was gone, it turned its pupiless eyes back on Tori, narrowing them as it prepared to strike. However, Nightshade was not going to have any of that.

He jumped onto the tunneling dragon's back, making it shriek and thrash around as Nightshade gripped, scratched, and bit at it relentlessly. Tori gasped silently as the Whispering Death whipped its spiked tail at his leg, making him cry out in pain. That hit gave the Whispering Death the advantage it needed in order to throw the Triple Stryke off of its back and into a tree. Tori's violet eyes widened as she saw his leg, which had at least three gashes along with two spines lodged into his thigh. He struggled to stand, but his injured leg was too badly damaged to withstand his burly weight.

The Whispering Death hissed menacingly at him, preparing an attack when Nightshade decided to make use of his tail...or at least, one of his tails. The stinger was swift in piercing the hide of the burrowing dragon, making it screech and fall to the ground as the numbing venom took hold of its senses. Very weakly, Nightshade stood up, opening his glowing jaws as he readied a blast of fire. The Whispering Death twitched, wildly fighting off the venom on the inside in order to get away.

"Nightshade, STOP!" Tori rushed between the two, forcing him to stop his attack. She placed her palm over his snout, patting it while smiling reassuringly, "You've done good, but we're fine now. You don't need to end it like this. Right now, we need to get you back to the village and get you fixed up."

Toothless approached, churring softly as he looked over the rider and her dragon. Nightshade growled at him softly, but winced at the pain in his leg, yet his he never let his dark blue eyes leave the Night Fury as he walked back to his injured leg. Taking a sniff at it, Toothless crawled underneath his foot, pushing it up with his body to keep his weight off of it. Nightshade ceased his growling, any feeling of jealousy or resentment he felt for Toothless disappearing.

"Come on. Let's go home," Tori pulled at him slightly, earning his cooperation as they slowly made their way back to the village. When they were well out of the meadow, the feeling began to return to the Whispering Death. It stood up on its coils, its eyes locked on the path the Viking and dragons took to leave.

* * *

"Toothless? Toothless!" Hiccup called into the village. He had woken up to find that his faithful dragon was not in his room when he woke up. He wasn't necessarily worried at first, but now not even hearing him respond to his calls was starting to bring him doubt.

"He wasn't at the docks," Astrid told him as she and Fishlegs landed in the middle of the square.

"He wasn't on the beach or at the academy either."

"Where could he be?" Hiccup wondered aloud. The three of them were then met with a very peculiar, yet very dangerous sight. Mildew, that was wearing a very large smile on his face. That couldn't be good at all.

"Well, Mildew. You seem awfully cheerful this morning," Hiccup suspiciously asked.

The old man looked at him 'surprised' and said, "Hmm? Do I? Well, I suppose I am happy about one thing...Well, I had heard that as of today, there'll be one less dragon rider on Berk."

This had taken all of them, Viking and dragon alike, aback at his statement. There was no way that it was...it couldn't be...

"Wait...you mean Tori? That can't be! She's apprenticing under me and learning about dragons! Her father and I had a deal!"

"Not anymore, that I've heard. After that little incident yesterday, her father not only declared that she be taken out of dragon training, but he's also forbidden her to be near the beasts at all, including those two in her care right now."

That couldn't be true. Hiccup very well knew which incident Mildew was mentioning, and he also knew that Tori's overprotective father would react this way, but he still couldn't believe it was happening. It couldn't just end like this. Tori was making such good progress! They couldn't turn back now!

"Ah, well. It's for the best, anyway. That poor little Korrinston shouldn' have been involved with dragons to begin with. Not after she was nearly taken away by one of the beasts."

Now if the news of Tori's training coming to an abrupt end didn't catch their attention, then this certainly did. Tori was almost stolen away by a dragon? Was it possible that this was the cause of Tori's irrational fear?

Any thoughts or further conversation was cut off by a very familiar cry. They turned and saw Toothless charging towards Hiccup, affectionately rubbing his head against his rider. Hiccup rubbed his head and greeted, "Good to see you, bud. I'm glad you're alright."

Toothless purred, looking back over his shoulder with his rider doing the same.

"Tori!"

The riders and their dragons rushed and surrounded their new comrades as Nightshade laid down. He brought his injured leg close to him, biting onto a spike and pulling it out, making him hiss out loudly from the pain. He collapsed from the exhaustion and breathed heavily.

"Um...Tori? Care to explain what happened?" Hiccup asked, looking over the Triple Stryke for any more injuries.

"It's a bit of a long story," she said, grabbing onto the second spine and pulling it out. Nightshade hissed again in pain, but received a gentle nudge from Toothless, "but if you want the short version, we got ambushed by a Whispering Death."

"A Whispering Death? Why?"

"I'm not sure. Nightshade got injured trying to protect me," Tori explained, stroking the uninjured parts of his leg. "It really got a good hit on him, so I got him back here as soon as I could."

"Well, that explains why he's injured, but why was Toothless was with you," Astrid commented.

Tori merely shrugged, "I don't know. He followed me to the academy when I went to visit Nightshade. Oh, and I'm sorry Hiccup, but his tail got damaged."

"You mean...you actually _flew_ on Toothless?" Hiccup inquired incredulously. At her nod, he then laughed nervously as he asked, "So...what'd you think?"

She replied with a nervous laugh of her own, rubbing her arm as she said, "Um...exciting, to say the least. But I think for right now, I'll stick to riding my own dragon."

Fishlegs asked, "But what about your dad? We just heard he wanted to take you out of dragon training."

Tori frowned deeply and bowed her head a bit, "I know, and I don't care. My dad obviously doesn't see that this is helping me a lot. I've never been more at peace around the dragons. I don't want them to go away just yet. It's not fair to Shoo or Nightshade. He wants them to stay away from me because of an accident that I caused, but he's just being overprotective of me."

"Because a dragon nearly took you away?" Fishlegs asked, covering his mouth as soon as he realized the words that had just come out of his mouth. Hiccup and Astrid turned to him, looking at him strangely yet sternly.

The violet-eyed Viking tensed dramatically, her hand on Nightshade's leg had clenched into a fist. She sighed heavily, "Yeah..."

* * *

Tori sat on her bed cross-legged, studying the notes within the Book of Dragons, stroking Shoo's back. She had came home after the others had finished helping her bandage up Nightshade, leaving him to rest in the academy. As she entered her home, she remembered that her father had spoken to her sternly about Shoo being with her, but she ignored him and went up to her room without a word to anyone.

That was hours ago. Now, she had still not spoke a word to anyone except herself and Shoo, only now waiting to go and give Nightshade his dinner and change his bandages. It was difficult to ignore her family like that, but she felt she had no choice. Nightshade had proven to be a stubborn, vain, disobedient, and even ornery dragon. However, that past display showed her that despite all of that, he would die for her and even kill for the sake of keeping her safe. She couldn't shun him before then and she wouldn't do so now.

A knock came at her door, though Shoo was the only one of the two who acknowledged it. The door opened and her father entered, shutting it behind him before approaching the bed.

"Tori."

Silence.

"Tori, I know yer upset with me, dear..."

She still didn't say a word. Agmund sighed heavily and sat down next to her, making Shoo crawl out of her lap and onto the bed where he curled up. He set a hand on her shoulder as he explained, "Tori, ye have ta understand that what I do, I do because I want my family safe. Ye know that ever since-"

Tori finally sighed, closing the book as she interrupted, "I know, dad, but that dragon hasn't come back since that day. What's there to worry about?"

"Too many things," he replied. "And the nightmare?"

"Haven't had one since I started dragon training."

Agmund chuckled lightly, "Glad ta hear it. You usually have those twice a week, and even then ye wake up screaming."

He then became serious again, "Anyway, that's not why I'm here. I spoke with Hiccup. He told me everything about what happened this morning...you really care for these dragons?"

"I really do, dad," she said, now looking him in the eye. "I know I still have a lot to learn, especially with how to handle a dragon like Nightshade, but I still want to try."

Agmund furrowed his eyebrows, sighing as he said, "...then I suppose I can at least try and givin' this another chance, but if I catch whiff of somethin' that's gonna put ye in danger-"

"Dad..."

Her father chuckled and pulled her close, "Alright, alright. Just promise me ye'll be safe."

She finally smiled, returning the hug, "I will, dad. I have Nightshade to protect me."

"That ye do, dear. That ye do."

The two pulled away as the room began to tremble violently. Agmund pulled his daughter close to him as the floorboards began to rattle and before either could comprehend it, a large hole had appeared in the stone wall of Tori's room. What had caused the hole caused Tori to gasp in fear and Agmund to push her behind him.

The Whispering Death had paused after entering the room in its own fashion. It didn't strike, nor did it try to breath fire. It just sat there, rustling its spikes slightly. Tori looked at the dragon and didn't see any immediate threat, and thought to take a chance. She stepped out from behind her father and approached the dragon, or at least she tried to.

"Tori, what're you doing!?" Agmund pulled her back by the wrist, actually causing a reaction from the Whispering Death, hissing at Agmund with narrowed eyes.

"Dad, stop it! I need to do this!" Tori yanked herself out of her father's grip, slowly and cautiously approaching the tunneling dragon. The Whispering Death leaned down and sniffed at her slightly. Tori froze as it nudged her slightly hissing softly before jerking back, tunneling back through the wall and out of sight.

"What was _that_? What did he want?" Agmund whispered aloud.

Tori didn't answer her father on that, mostly because he probably wouldn't understand. The Whispering Death had tried to attack her, yes, but when Nightshade was about to end its life, Tori had stepped in and prevented the attack, thus saving its life. Just in that, the Whispering Death felt that Tori could be trusted.

"Um...dad? That Whispering Death was a girl..."

* * *

"So it's true, Tori's no longer in dragon training," Fishlegs said, he and the other riders were in the academy, staring at Nigthshade's empty stable.

Hiccup shook his head, "That can't be! Agmund said that he and Tori would have a talk. He couldn't have just took her out without telling me first."

"Oh, please! That old man's not trying to keep Tori away from the dragons," Snotlout suddenly exclaimed. Everyone turned to him as he explained, "It's obvious that he knows that Tori's totally into me and is trying to keep us apart."

Everyone groaned at that reply. Of course Snotlout would come up with that.

"But you know what I say? I say that he can take her out of dragon training, he can even take away her dragons, but what he can't take is the love that is so obviously between us!"

"Um...hate to break it to you, Snotlout, but nobody took anything from anyone."

The trainers and their respective dragons looked up and saw Tori, atop Nightshade, hovering over the dome of the academy. The Triple Stryke looked to be improving from his injury, but his leg was still noticeably covered in bandages. Also, he appeared to be much more calm in flight, as did Tori.

"Tori! You're...You're flying! You're actually flying on a dragon!" Hiccup stated enthusiastically.

"I know! We took a lap around the island this morning. It was amazing! I was just getting Nightshade settled into his new pen above my room."

Tuffnut furrowed his eyebrows and yelled out, "But isn't your room completely made of rock?"

"Yeah, why?"

"How did you get a pen built then?" Astrid asked.

Tori merely replied with a sheepish shrug, "Uh...funny story about that..."


	7. Lesson 7: To Be Rid of the Fear

**Okay! I'm actually proud that I managed to get this updated this soon. Things are starting to let up in classes, but don't get your hopes up in that the uploads are going to get more frequent. I'll do my best, but don't expect any miracles. **

**MMM-** **Honestly, I had a few ideas of how Tori would get through this, but I had to stick to being at list a little bit realistic. Tori could have taken Nightshade and Shoo and ran away, but Tori has lived a pretty sheltered life and would probably feel too intimidated in the world by herself. There was also the possibility of her just flipping out on her father, but she's usually a soft-spoken person and tends to avoid violence whenever possible. When all of that failed, the cold shoulder/guilt trip seemed to be the most sensible solution. For the most part, Tori is getting more comfortable with the dragons, but as you'll see in this chapter, there is ONE dragon that she will have difficulties dealing with, if you read the chapter and catch my drift. As for the relationship with Tori and Hiccup, it's mostly professional, but Tori does feel gratitude towards him and Toothless and it will also be made clear why that is in this chapter. **

**As said before, the rest of you with accounts will be contacted through PM for your comments. Anyway, I do not own HTTYD or its characters, plot, dragons, etc. I, however, own my characters (human, dragon and otherwise), plot, and ideas. Enjoy!**

At night, it was very peaceful on Berk. The Terrible Terrors had finished their nightly tunes and anyone kept up by the songs were finally able to sleep.

Tori, on the other hand, was not as at peace as the rest of the village. In her bed, with her Terrible Terror curled up under her arm, she laid there, sweating, squirming, and whimpering. Shoo's eyes blinked a bit before popping open as his rider's arm began to constrict him. He clawed with his back legs desperately at the bed as he tried to escape her grip.

Finally, Shoo had to resort to drastic measures: he bit down hard on Tori's arm. She bolted up, eyes wide open and out of breath. Her heart pounded loudly as she looked all over the room for the source of the danger.

The violet Terror climbed onto her lap and roared at her, quickly gaining her attention. She sighed in disdain as the fog in her mind cleared: the nightmare had returned.

"Sorry, Shoo," she spoke with a rasp. Her throat felt like it was dryer than the hide on a Gronckle's back. She needed water, and there was only one place at the time she could get some.

Up the ladder on the far side of her room she climbed, up the hole made by her Whispering Death friend, whom she had named Dustcloud. Of course, she doubted that the dragon would be showing herself again any time soon.

Getting to the top, Tori pulled herself onto the edge of a surprisingly spacious pen she had made specifically for Nightshade. It was a pretty simple pen: a bedding area where the Triple Stryke slept soundly at the moment, a wooden post to hold his saddle, a troth for his water and barrels for his fish.

With his things, there was also some supplies of Tori's that she felt she would need when going to training: her shield, bow and arrows, canteen, and her wild dragon encounter kit with dragon nip plant and dragon nip marinade.

She opened the canteen, greedily gulping down any drop of water she could get. When it emptied, it didn't feel like enough. Still, it was enough for now. She tossed it to the side before throwing her arms up in a stretch.

A sudden force bumped her back, and she turned and saw that Nightshade had awoken, greeting his rider with a tired roar. She could relate at the moment.

Tori gave him a tired smile, patting his snout as she greeted, "Good morning, Nightshade. Sorry if I woke you."

He growled, poking at her stomach with his head. He wasn't fooled, now able to tell when something was wrong with his rider. She didn't look upset, but he still couldn't help but feel uneasy with how tired she looked. She never looked like that when she was not tired.

"It's okay. It was just a nightmare," she assured him. He still didn't look convinced, tilting his head a bit as his pupils dilated in concern.

Tori's smile disappeared much too easily, sighing a bit at remembering said nightmare. She hadn't had that dream since she had first started training dragons. Actually…it wasn't so much as a nightmare as it was a memory.

"I never used to be this afraid of dragons. Did you know that, Nightshade?"

The Triple Stryke growled curiously, letting his body slump down to the ground. Tori grunted as his head brought her down with him. Her legs were pinned down by his weight, and so she figured that this was his way of telling her he wanted to hear. And she clearly wasn't going anywhere until she told her story.

She smiled sadly and stroked his head, "I guess it started when I was about six. I was sleeping and there was this dragon attack on Berk…"

* * *

"_DRAGON ATTACK!"_

_Tori shot up in bed with a gasp, and at the tender age of six, she could only think of rushing to her parents to see what was happening. She rushed out of her room, carrying with her the blanket of dragon skin given to her as a birthday present. Upon coming down the stairs and saw her father rushing around, grabbing his axe, his spear, any possible weapon he could get his hands on. _

"_Dad! What's happening!?"_

"_Dragon attack. Bigger than usual. I need te get out there and help. Go get your brother and get to yer mother in the back!"_

_He didn't give her time to reply as he charged out the door, slamming it shut in the process. Tori hurried back to the second floor, entering the room of her little two year-old brother, Blynn. He was bundled up tightly, sleeping soundly even with the commotion going on just outside of the walls._

"_Okay, little brother. We need to go to mom…"_

_BOOM!_

_Tori grunted as she was thrown back midway of picking up her brother. She pushed herself up weakly and immediately froze in horror, even going as far as to ignoring the cries of her brother and his distress. She wrapped her blanket entirely around her to ease the fear filling her up. It didn't help._

_A large, smoking hole had been made in the wall of Blyn's room, and perched within that circle was a dragon. It was not very large, but large enough to be intimidating by itself. Blue sparks danced off of its scales, disappearing completely as it stepped into the room. It's long snout waved about, taking in the scents of the room before it turned its eyes, those electric-blue eyes, onto the cradle of the crying Viking babe._

_Tori gasped, her eyes shifting from the crib to the dragon as it approached. She jumped up, throwing herself between the dragon and her brother protectively. _

_The dragon hissed, narrowing its eyes in irritation. Tori, however, held her ground and kept herself in front of her brother no matter how much the dragon made her tremble._

_However, the strange dragon's head spikes shifted upward slightly, clearly thrown off by something. It pressed its snout close to Tori, taking in deep sniffs of her scent. It growled and lurched back…right before it snapped its jaws on Tori's blanket and pulling her upward._

_Tori yelped, and was momentarily dazed, but felt her heart rate skyrocket as she came back to reality. The dragon had taken off, her blanket wrapped around her dangling from the dragon's jaws by about one hundred feet. _

"_MOM! DAD! HELP!" she cried loudly, though her hope was pretty dim considering so much of the noise cancelled out her voice. _

_However, her cry was heard. Agmund had his boot on the head of a Deadly Nadder and was nearly ready to end its life, but then turned at hearing is daughter's voice. _

"_TORI! NO!"_

_He ran after them, desperately thinking of ways to stop the dragon before it could reach open water. By then, there was no guarantee that Tori would ever come back to them, dead or alive. _

_Seeing no other way around it, Agmund brought up his axe, throwing it as hard as he could up at the dragon. The blade struck the beast, right at the side of its eye, but it was enough to make it stop in mid-air. The sudden jerking forced half of the blanket to rip, sending Tori plummeting to the ground with a scream. _

_The dragon shook its head, throwing aside the pain before diving down to Tori. She was falling fast, but its diving was faster. There was no way it wouldn't catch her._

"_Gotcha!" Stoick grabbed Tori before she could hit the ground and held her close. The dragon crashed to the ground, thrown off by the child being snatched away from it. It shook its head before narrowing its eyes, lifting its wings and body as it hissed menacingly. _

_The chief wordlessly shouted as he used his shield to smack at the side of the dragons head when it charged. The shield broke in two as it threw the dragon back slightly, but that only seemed to make it angrier. With its mouth slightly open, bright blue energy began to form in the back of its throat. _

"_Stay away from my daughter!" Agmund roared as he struck the creature on the side with a tackle. Considering the dragon's size, it had only thrown it back a few feet, but it was enough to catch it by surprise. _

_Seeing as it was at a disadvantage, the dragon had no choice but to retreat. It took off, flying off with the other dragons. Stoick breathed heavily, handing over the child to Agmund. Tori clung to him, whimpering and shaking in fear as he whispered to her to calm her down._

_Unbeknownst to them, the retreating dragon turned its head, staring down at the village with the other half of the dragon-skin blanket hanging from its teeth. It turned back to the sky in front of it and took off back to its nest._

* * *

"…I guess that all of us were taught to fear the dragons at that age, but after all of that, it sort of became permanent for me…"

Nightshade blinked at the solemnness of his rider's voice. She seemed so…resigned, as if she were so full of regret. Tori, who had had a small frown on her face, let a smile cross her lips slightly as she stroked his snout,

"…but you know, I'm still glad it happened. If that hadn't happened, I would have never feared the dragons as much as I had. Then I would have never would have met you."

The Triple Stryke hummed, the vibrations coming from his throat clear to feel on Tori's legs. His eyes twitched shut as the light of the morning sun began to break through on the horizon.

Tori narrowed her eyes before pushing her dragon's head off, "Hey! That's Trader Johann's ship! He should have the order I placed!"

She grabbed the sadly and threw it upon Nightshade's back. The dragon stood up, shaking off the sleep that remained in order to fly. Tori climbed onto his back, urging him to the edge of the cave.

"That ship, Nightshade! We need to get there as soon as possible!"

Nightshade growled before taking off, diving down the lower altitude upon coming into open water. They were now at the surface of the sea, quickly approaching the boat. Actually, a bit _too_ quickly.

"Okay, Nightshade. We don't need to get there _this_ soon. Why don't you slow down a bit?" Tori nervously stated. Still, Nightshade didn't appear to hear her as his speed didn't go down. The details of the boat were becoming more and more clear by the second.

"Nightshade, I mean it. Stop!"

The boat was now a mere fifty feet away.

"NIGHTSHADE!" Tori yanked back on the saddle roughly. The Triple Stryke's eyes widened before his wings shot open, slowing them down somewhat, but not enough before-

"Oh my!" Johann exclaimed, grabbing onto the mast as his boat was shaken violently. The boat rocked and almost went to tip over, but then suddenly slumped back down into place.

The merchant's heart was beating erratically, his eyes darting all around to find the source of the attack.

"Sorry, Johann! My fault!"

Johann jumped back as a black tail with a blue tip fell down next to him. Hanging upon the rafters was Nightshade. Tori, however, had been flung over his head and was on her stomach across his snout.

She pushed herself back, pushing back the hood that had shielded her face from view. After dusting herself off, she grinned and waved at the merchant, "Morning, Johann!"

"A-ah, Miss Tori! I-er…wasn't expecting you so soon!" he nervously greeted. Granted, even with his experience with the dragons, he didn't expect Tori Korrinston to be on the back of one, expecially one so…intimidating. "Would you be so kind as to remove your dragon from my ship? I'm afraid any more imbalance will cause it to tip."

"Sorry! Up, Nightshade!"

The Triple Stryke obeyed, pushing itself off of the boat and into the air. Johann had a hand on his chest, trying to recover his sense of peace before that incident.

"Say, Johann! Do you have my order ready?"

"Y-Yes! Right here! Just as promised!" Johann gestured to a medium-sized chest. "I must ask though, couldn't you have waited until I came ashore?"

He gasped a bit as a tail coiled its way around the chest, pulling it close to Nightshade's body.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Johann! Say goodbye, Nightshade!"

The Triple Stryke gave out a low roar before turning tail and flying back to Berk. Trader Johann put a hand to his forehead before muttering to himself,

"And just when I've thought I had gotten used to the dragons of Berk…"

* * *

"Tori, dear. Ye have the nightmare again?"

Said Viking teen looked over her shoulder to her father, who was making his way down the stairs. Tori smiled weakly and turned back to her work as she asked,

"What makes you ask that?"

"Needlework, dear," Agmund replied bluntly. "Ye use it te calm yerself down after ye've had the nightmare."

With that, she merely shrugged, "You've got me. Honestly though, this is the first time it's happened since I started dragon training…"

Agmund nodded slightly, "So, there's still some fear left of'em, then?"

At that, Tori didn't answer any further than a shrug of the shoulders as she continued her work. That was enough answer for Agmund, and so he merely left through the front door.

Tori hummed, bringing up the red silk she had ordered for closer inspection. She then asked Shoo, who was draped across her shoulders, "What do you think, Shoo? It's really coming around, isn't it?"

The violet Terrible Terror looked at her project with disinterest of the most obvious kind. He then narrowed his eyes and roared slightly.

"Oh, don't be so jealous. I'll make one for you when I'm finished with this one for Toothless. Don't forget that this is a thank-you gift."

"A thank-you gift, huh?"

"A-Astrid!" Tori suddenly bolted up, kicking the chest under the table. Sure enough, the blonde shield maiden was at the door with Stormfly waiting right behind her. "What a surprise! What brings you here so early?"

"You know, you're only going to be excused from being late to dragon training for so long. I know it's been crazy these past few days, but you still need to get your dragon under control, so I just came by to make sure you were keeping everything in order."

Feeling a bit startled at the reply, Tori blinked before shrinking down a bit, "Y-yeah…I see your point. Thanks for checking in, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of things."

Astrid hummed and nodded, but then said, "Good. Then you're ready to start dragon combat training, right?"

"Huh?!" Tori stumbled back, nearly tripping on the chest. "C-combat training? Why combat training?"

"Relax, I'm only half-serious," she interrupted. "Still though, there's going to be a time when it's just you and your dragon without any backup. If you come across any Outcasts or Berserkers while you're on your fishing boat, you'll be on your own and you can't just rely on Nightshade to fight for you."

"Wait, Outcasts? Berserkers?! What kind of training to you guys do _outside_ of Berk?!"

Astrid, with hand on her hip, walked around while blowing out a breath of air, "We've got a lot of work to do before you're battle-ready."

She landed her gaze on the chest with the red silk sticking out. Before Tori could say a word, she pulled out the fabric composed of red and black silk.

"You said this was a thank-you gift to Toothless? What for?"

Tori rubbed her arm as she responded, "Well…for one thing, he did save me from that Whispering Death, but for the most part its just thanks for him and Hiccup for…well, everything."

When Astrid arched an eyebrow while setting down the fabric, Tori sighed and continued, "I guess it's hard to understand, but its true: I did almost get taken away by a dragon when I was young, around when I was six. Ever since then, my parents have just been keeping me away, sheltering me from the danger instead of helping me get past my fear. Hiccup and Toothless are just…the first to ever try to actually help me."

Astrid furrowed her brow in thought. That…actually did make a lot of sense. Tori hadn't been much out of her house since that time. If she ever went out at all, she was always with her mother or father or even under the watchful eye of some other adult.

There was also the case of her fear that Tori was once again correct about. Astrid knew a thing or two about fear and looking at this case, it made perfect sense now. There was a good chance that the trauma Tori had experienced as a child was not as bad as it was when she was older; however, with her overprotective parents keeping her isolated rather than helping her recover properly, the fear of dragons could only manifest and grow over time.

"We'll be starting training soon. We should get going."

That was all Astrid could respond with in that situation. She set the silk back into the chest and went to exit the house. Tori grabbed Shoo, setting him on her shoulders as she went to follow.

* * *

"Alright Tori, now that we've got you in the air, the first area we should cover is formations with other dragons," Hiccup explained. All dragons and dragon riders were present and gliding over the ocean with a surprisingly calm pace.

"Remember that the bigger dragons always fly close to the rear with the smaller dragons up front. The first formation is a simple one: single-file formation!"

Hiccup raised one arm and the rest of the riders lined up in a perfect straight line. Tori nudged Nightshade, urging him to line up right behind Snotlout and Hookfang.

"Good. This formation can hide the number of backup you have in battle," Tori cringed a bit at that word _battle_. Perhaps she should tell him that she wasn't quite comfortable yet with the idea of fighting…

"The next formation is the V-formation."

With the next signal, the riders went to their appropriate places. Tori was faster this time to find her place, in the back on Hiccup's right.

_This is definitely getting better, _Tori smiled a bit, but then it disappeared just as quickly when she turned. Snotlout, with his everlasting arrogance, winked at her with a smirk while leaning on Hookfang's horn.

"Uh…great flying, Snotlout. You too, Hookfang," she said with a forced smile. It couldn't possibly do much damage to humor him a bit, would it?

Hookfang turned his head slightly, his eyes dilating slightly as he hummed in contentment. Meanwhile, Sntlout merely boasted loud enough for the rest to hear, "You hear that, guys? Tori thinks _I'm_ an amazing rider."

This earned groans from the rest of the dragon riders, and Tori had earned herself looks mainly from Hiccup and Astrid that basically said 'please don't encourage him'.

"Um, I don't think amazing was the word I used, Snotlout," Tori tried to protest, especially when he and Hookfang decided to fly even closer to them, much too close for comfort in her opinion. "And aren't we supposed to stay in formation?"

"You don't need to hide your feelings anymore Tori. I know you want me," Snotlout winked again at her.

Tori shrunk down, gripping tightly onto the saddle in complete discomfort. This set off Nightshade, who turned his head back with a narrow-eyed glare at the Jorgenson boy. His hiss rang out loudly as he struck at Snotlout with one of his tails.

Snotlout's eyes suddenly widened before he cried out loudly, falling off of Hookfang and plummeting down towards the sea. Hookfang seemed to groan before diving down after him.

"Huh, that's strange," Tori furrowed her brow.

"What's strange, exactly?" Hiccup asked, slowing Toothless down to fly alongside her with the rest of the riders.

"What's strange is that Nightshade struck me with his right tail when we first met, and that only made my body go numb. This time, he hit Snotlout with his left tail and he didn't seem to go numb at all. If anything, it looked like he was in a lot of pain."

"I _am_ in pain!" Snotlout bellowed as he came back up in Hookfang's talons. "That stupid dragon's sting made it feel like my blood was on fire from the inside-ow ow OW! It still stings!"

"Cool! Do me! Do me!" Tuffnut waved his hands at the Triple Stryke.

"Yeah, do him! Do him!" Ruffnut encouraged with a devious grin.

Tori shook her head, "I am _not_ letting Nightshade sting anyone for the fun of it."

This earned audible groans of disappointment from the twins. Meanwhile, Fishlegs exclaimed, "This is amazing! Three separate tails must mean three separate venoms after all! So the right tail causes temporary paralysis…"

"And the left one causes intense pain," Astrid continued. "What does the middle tail do, then?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll know when the time is right," Tori answered meekly. She then smiled and patted Nightshade's ear plate, "Thanks, by the way. I don't think I could have handled Snotlout myself."

"I heard that!"


	8. Lesson 8: To Foster a Hatchling

**Okay, do NOT count on this happening very often, but I'm still very proud of getting this posted so soon. I guess I was so excited about this chapter that I couldn't stop typing. Plus, it is sort of something I've been working on for weeks. Anyway...**

**MMM- Yeah, things are getting tougher, but soon it will all be over. It also is noted that a Triple Stryke has a unique venom in each tail, though I don't know if I have the right venom in each tail. For all I know, I could have it all backwards, but it doesn't say which tail matches which venom. Dustcloud will be making another appearance, but most likely it won't happen until the sequel. **

**Anyway, I don't own HTTYD, I only own my characters, plot, etc. Enjoy the new (and actually very close) update!**

"C'mon, please?!" Blyn begged…_yet again_ just a day or two later since getting back on track with dragon training.

Blyn had been informed of Tori's improvement in her training and her control over Nightshade. With that being said, he was more than eager to jump at the opportunity to get on the back of a dragon. He knew none of the other riders would let so much as touch their dragons, let alone ride them. However, now that his sister was becoming an adept dragon trainer…

"For the thirteenth time, and I've been counting, no," Tori told him, polishing Nightshade's saddle. For once, it was a free day from dragon training for Tori and it was the perfect time to take care of things that would need a considerable amount of time.

"Blyn, you really don't know how hard I had to fight to keep Nightshade and Shoo after that stunt on the seastacks. I'm not going to mess this up by going out on an unauthorized flight. The answer is no!"

"Oh, come on! You can't seriously just fly only when you're told to fly. You need to get out there on your own sooner or later."

Tori paused, her brow furrowed in thought before she shrugged, "I choose later."

Poor Blyn had looked like his hopes had went up, only to be shot down in an instant. He pouted and sat on the supply chest next to Nightshade's pen. The Triple Stryke was lying on his side, only half-listening to the conversation as he enjoyed having a day off from training.

The young Korrinston boy sat there, drumming his fingers on his arm in impatience. His face suddenly brightened up with mischief before he said,

"Uh, you know what I just remembered Tori: dad said that he wanted to have wild boar for dinner tonight."

"Fine. I'll just hunt one when I'm finished with this."

Blyn made an uncomfortable sound as he rubbed his arm, "Yeah…but he wants Freya Meadow grass-fed wild boar. For tomorrow night."

Tori froze, dropping her saddle brush before turning back at him. Her expression showed great exasperation as she repeated, "_Freya Meadow _grass-fed boar? You mean from Evergreen Island? That'll take an entire day just to travel there! I don't have that kind of time!"

"Yes, you're absolutely right! But you forget, it will take a day of travel by _boat_. But, if you were to have something that can get you from island to island faster…"

Blyn waved his hand suggestively, making Tori turn to the obvious solution: Nightshade, who had only just perked up at his rider's distress. She turned to her brother, narrowing her eyes as she glared at him.

"Did you have this planned from the beginning?"

Blyn innocently shrugged, "Not really. Just remembered it now."

Tori sighed heavily, taking the saddle and throwing it across Nightshade's back while muttering,

"Evil little genius."

The other Korrinston sibling merely grinned, "You better believe it, sis."

* * *

"Just a reminder, you're here with me on an errand. If you cause any trouble, I'm dropping you off on the nearest sea stack until I get the boar."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it," Blyn said with a large grin, looking as the water beneath them as it passed by so fast. This was definitely not like what flying on a dragon would be like…it was even better!

"When can I get a dragon? This is awesome!"

Tori shook her head, "Don't know. If everything goes well with me, who knows? Maybe you'll find a dragon you really connect with."

For the most part, the rest of the two-hour ride was silent. Tori was focusing on keeping their direction to Evergreen Island correct, and Blyn was marveling at the sights from Nightshade's back.

"Evergreen Island! Let's get down there, Nightshade."

Nightshade churred before diving down to the island towards a small clearing. After landing, Tori slid off of the saddle and Blyn jumped down.

"Come on! We need to get dad's boar!" he said as he took off to Freya's Meadow. Tori grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows, following after him to the meadow. Nightshade tilted his head, following after them.

Freya's Meadow was the largest meadow in the entire archipelago. The grass was the greenest and the most nutritious (according to Fishlegs, of course), making the wildlife that ate it some of the best quality a Viking could get. Of course, with such a wide and open meadow, it was difficult to sneak up on the beasts and hunt them.

"There's a boar!" Tori whispered, crouching down and loading her bow. "He's a big one."

"Sweet! Let's get that-" Blyn was interrupted as his sister shushed him loudly.

She took a deep breath, pulling the arrow back. The boar was taking a drink from the pond near the edge of the trees that luckily blocked them from the view of the boar. When she felt that the beast wouldn't move, she released the bow. They ducked down, only coming back up at the sound of the boar's pained squeal.

"Yes! Let's get it wrapped up!"

The siblings wrapped up the boar in the burlap. Tori wiped the sweat from her brow as she said, "Okay, Nightshade. Crouch down a bit so that I can get this boar."

As the Triple Stryke crouched down, his ear plates shot up. He suddenly began to hiss with his eyes narrowed towards the meadow.

"Huh?"

Tori and Blyn turned towards the meadow, only to quickly duck down into the brush. Tori hushed her dragon, pulling him closer to the brush to keep out of sight.

In the meadow were three armored Vikings that were armed to the teeth with weapons. Two of them looked to be just large soldiers, but the third was rather leaner and meaner than the other two. Unlike the other two, he had golden shoulder plates and wore no helmet. He had dark blonde hair and dark gray eyes that were almost black as he surveyed the area.

"I could have sworn I had heard something from over here. Sounded like a boar being torn up by a dragon," one of the soldiers commented. The lean Viking, the one looking like the leader, kneeled down on the ground, running a hand over the dirt.

"No, not a dragon," he said, his voice just as cold as his eyes. He stood back up, throwing a glare over at the forest. He reached over his shoulder, grabbing his axe as he continued, "But it appears that we're not alone on this island."

With a wave of his weapon, the other soldiers readied their sword and crossbow as they approached the forest. Nightshade began to growl lowly, his tail twitching in anticipation at the hostile Vikings.

"Shh! Nightshade, be quiet!" Tori desperately whispered. She wrapped her arms around his snout, trying to lower the volume of his growling as they drew closer…

"Sir!"

Luckily, that wasn't necessary as a third soldier was running towards them. They turned back as he came to a stop.

The ships been restocked with provisions. There's also a storm quickly approaching, so I suggest we move out now."

The leader paused, looking over his shoulder at the forest before he replied, "Very well. Let's move out."

The soldiers began to file back towards the other side of the meadow. However, the leader stopped for a second, looking back at the forest as he muttered,

"You got lucky."

"That was close!" Tori sighed, slumping down on the grass as soon as they were out of sight. She breathed heavily for about a minute before getting up and grabbing onto the boar.

"Okay, we have the boar, now let's get out of here before they decide to come back."

As soon as the boar carcass was fastened onto Nightshade's back, Tori began to board herself before she noticed something with great horror.

"Blyn?"

She looked around frantically, trying to locate her brother. She gasped at the very sight presented to her: no more than a few yards behind the soldiers, Blyn was sneaking behind them. He was obviously curious as to who these men were exactly, but curiosity to a Viking can be a dangerous thing.

* * *

Blyn quietly followed the mysterious Vikings, quite skillfully, if he did say so himself. Of course, there was the strong possibility that they were in too much of a hurry to leave the island to notice him at all.

After a few minutes of tailing them, Blyn finally poked his head out from behind a rock just at the edge of their base camp. The Viking leader broke off from the two soldiers that had followed him. His emotionless face suddenly broke with a large grin as he took off the satchel he was wearing.

"You're certainly a prize, aren't you? You'll be very useful to us. Very useful, indeed."

He set the satchel down on top of a barrel before leaving to survey the status of his men. Blyn narrowed his baby blue eyes at the satchel with a sly smirk, slowly creeping over…until he silently yelped as he was yanked back by his arm.

Tori was glaring at him, as was Nightshade as she pulled him back behind the boulder.

"What do you think you're doing!? Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

Blyn didn't even flinch before he replied, "I'm not scared. Why would I be scared of a bunch of Skrill enthusiasts?"

Tori pinched the bridge of her nose as she continued, "Honestly, I knew I shouldn't have given in and brought you with me! Wait, Skrill enthusiasts?"

"Uh, yeah. Just look at their sails."

Tori crept up from behind the rock and looked over at the beach. Upon analyzing the sails, her blood went cold. She finally remembered why those outfits on those soldiers were so familiar.

"Blyn, those aren't Skrill enthusiasts. Those are Berserker soldiers!" she whisper-shouted. Nightshade growled lowly, noticing how Tori became completely tense. "This is bad! We're not fit for combat yet. We need to get out of here before they catch us. If it's not enough that we're Berkian, they'll kill us for being dragon trainers. Blyn, get on Nightshade's back and we'll take off before they can-! Blyn? Blyn?!"

Tori looked around, seeing that her brother had, once again, left her side without noticing. He was currently at the barrel, grabbing onto the satchel before running back to where they were hiding. She suddenly turned to Nightshade as she frantically asked,

"Why didn't you tell me he was sneaking off again?!"

The Triple Stryke jerked back a bit before slumping down and rolling his eyes. Like it was _his_ job to keep an eye on two humans at the same time…

"Ha! Take a look at what I got!" Blyn exclaimed, showing off the satchel. "Don't know what's in here, but I bet it's pretty valuable from the way that guy was staring at it."

Tori was about to protest to that, but then stopped. She rubbed her chin in thought before muttering, "Well, I guess that's…good. Ever since Dagur took over, the Berserkers are never up to anything good. Maybe whatever's in there is meant for one of his schemes."

"Too bad you won't live long enough to tell anyone."

Nightshade hissed menacingly, his tails arching up to ready itself for striking. Tori and Blyn turned to the Berserker commander…at least it was sufficient enough to call him that. His dark gray eyes were back to their cold, emotionless glint as he approached them, axe in his hand as he approached them.

"Well, this is certainly new. Never seen a dragon like that before," he said as Nightshade took a step forward. "His head would look quite handsome above my fireplace."

"Y-you can't do that!" Tori clung onto her dragon's snout, even as he continued to hiss with rage.

"Oh, can't I?" the Berserker smirked. He raised his axe, pointing it to them. A large metallic net suddenly came at them, ensnaring Nightshade even as he struggled to escape it. The area suddenly became crowded with Berserker soldiers, all ready to fight.

"Now that that's settled, step aside and give back that satchel, will you?" the commander began to move forward. "I promise that if you cooperate, we'll only leave you stranded here."

"N-no! Stay away from my dragon!" Tori threw herself between the Berserker and Nightshade. The Berserker merely scowled and swiped at her, throwing her to the side a good few feet away.

Blyn gasped lightly, but Nightshade felt his blood boil to unimaginable intensity. Nobody treats his rider like that! He struggled all the harder to escape the net to help her and it almost looked like he would, but the Berserker was still coming to him with his axe glinting menacingly.

Tori couldn't explain it, but something in her either clicked or snapped. She grabbed a large tree branch and charged at him.

"I said BACK OFF!" she yelled as she struck him on the back of the head, snapping the branch in two, before kicking him in his stomach and away from Nightshade. The Berserker pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his head before landing his gaze at Tori.

"Fine. Forget about being stranded. I'll just butcher you right here."

Whatever had set Tori off suddenly disappeared as she became terrified, dropping the branch onto the sand. She smiled sheepishly as she backed up unsteadily to keep her distance from the quickly approaching Berserker.

Said Berserker went flying to the side thanks to the metallic net that Nightshade had gotten free of. He spread his wings and unraveled his tails, glaring at all of the soldiers. His mouth opened wide with a bright white light forming in his throat as he prepared to fire.

A gigantic boom struck at the camp, forcing the attention away from the Berkians and their dragon. The storm had approached quite swiftly indeed, but that's not what created the boom.

"Is that…?

"Couldn't be…"

"It is…!"

The sails were struck hard with lightning, burning away the Skrill printing on it only to reveal a very real and very angry Skrill. It struck boat after boat, and all efforts to stop it were futile from the Berserkers. Whatever they had done to anger it, it was certainly carrying a heck of a grudge.

"Tori! Let's get out of here!" Blyn exclaimed as he mounted onto Nightshade.

Tori's eyes, however, remained completely locked onto the Skrill that was on a full-blown rampage. Visions of her nightmare flashed through her mind, visions that still haunt her and have come back after so many years. The dragon from her memory and the Skrill currently obliterating the Berserker camp were a perfect match.

"TORI! Come on! Let's go!"

Nightshade's tail grabbed onto his rider's waist, throwing her on his back before taking off. The sooner they got away from that chaotic scene, the better.

* * *

The ride to Berk was as silent as ever. By the time they reached Berk, the sun was just barely touching the horizon. Blyn slid off of Nightshade's back and onto the grass just after he landed in front of their house.

Not even seconds later, Hiccup and the rest of the riders landed in front of them. Tori remained on Nightshade's back, slightly trembling.

"I see you two decided to have a day off of Berk. See anything interesting?" Hiccup asked, but then noticed Tori's state. "Tori? You okay?"

"Okay? What just happened was completely AWESOME!" Blyn jumped up and down. He then began explaining the entire story, "We were on Evergreen Island, and there were these Berserkers!"

"Berserkers?" Hiccup questioned, but Blyn didn't stop there.

"You should've seen Tori! She used a gigantic tree branch and beat the almighty Thor out of their commander! It was so cool!"

Astrid deadpanned, crossing her arms as she asked, "Tori. Tori actually beat a Berserker commander? She doesn't even have any basic training!"

Once again, the rider's comments went unnoticed as Blyn continued, "Oh, and the best part was this huge Skrill came in and started blowing everything up! It looked really mad at the Berserkers for some reason!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Tuffnut waved his hands, trying to gain sense of the situation…or so it appeared. He then leaned on Belch's head and asked, "Go back to the 'blowing up everything.'"

Everyone groaned and shook their heads, but then Fishlegs asked, "Um, does that have anything to do with why Tori is…like this?"

"Huh? Probably. She's been like that since the Skrill came," Blyn brushed it of nonchalantly. Nightshade, however, turned his head back, rumbling in worry as he gazed at his frozen rider. "Anyway, I did manage to snatch this from their camp! It looked like whatever it is, they really didn't want to lose it."

He held up the satchel proudly for the others to see. Of course, it wasn't such an impressive sight considering they had no idea what was inside it.

"Well? What is it?" Snotlout asked impatiently.

"I don't know. I never looked. All I know is that it is warm. Huh…actually, now its _really_ warm," he commented with a smile. That smile quickly disappeared as he dropped the satchel and backed up, "Okay, really hot! Really hot!"

"And glowing. Whatever that is, it's glowing now," Fishlegs said, he and Meatlug becoming somewhat spooked.

Indeed, the satchel or whatever was inside of it, was taking on a bright glow. All of the dragons tensed and backed away.

"Tori, get away from there!" Hiccup called out, but it was too late.

_BOOM!_

The satchel burst, and the bright light shot right from the ground right at-!

"OOOF!" Tori grunted as it hit her right in the abdomen, knocking her right off of her dragon. Nightshade jumped back, but then rushed to Tori in great concern.

* * *

Tori shook her head, her eyes still closed as she tried to fight off the pain in her head and her stomach. She felt something wet on her face, like a tongue.

Slowly her eyes opened, and indeed she was met with a large tongue. More precisely, Nightshade's large tongue licking the side of her face. Along with him, she saw the blurry faces of the other dragon riders and her brother.

"Hiccup? Is that what I think it is?"

"Fishlegs, I have no doubts that's exactly what we think it is."

All of the voices she heard sounded blended together. She forced herself up, groaning a bit in pain as she rubbed the side of her head.

"Amazing! Incredible!...What is it?"

"What's what…?" Tori weakly asked, finally responding after Ruffnut's question. She then noticed that, unlike a few moments ago (she prayed to Thor it was only a few minutes ago), there was weight on her stomach that wasn't there before.

So she looked down and couldn't help but stiffen. Around her body were scattered eggshells. Dragon eggshells. And on her stomach, slowly unfurling itself, was a baby dragon.

The hatchling had a long snout for its body size, which was colored with black scales on top and had dark violet scales starting along its throat and went down to its belly. Its crown spikes were twitching slightly, as if trying to get used to using them.

Finally, its wings were spreading and its eyes, its light violet eyes blinked open. It shook its head, letting out a little roar as he turned to Tori, the creature that was currently giving him warmth that had went away after leaving the safety of its egg. With its vision still a bit blurry, it tilted its head and tried to climb up onto her chest.

"Uhhh, no. No, no," Tori shook her head, grabbing onto the hatchling. It struggled in her grasp as she set it on the ground. She forced herself to stand up on shaky legs as the hatchling cried out in indignation, making himself go after her.

"Tori, don't freak out. The baby Skrill just wants to be friends…I think," Hiccup said, trying to keep the situation calm and collected.

Tori backed away, keeping herself at a distance from the Skrill hatchling as it clumsily followed her. She fell on her bottom, but found herself unable to move. With that, the hatchling crawled onto her stomach and up to her chest. Finally, it circled on her before laying down. It yawned slightly before snuggling itself into Tori.

"You guys are seeing this, right?" Blyn asked.

"Hiccup! We heard a boom. What happened?" Stoick asked as he, Gobber, and Agmund came upon the scene.

"Uh…Nothing much. Tori just made a new friend is all."

"Looks more like Tori just became a mother ta me," Gobber said.

Everyone turned to him in obvious shock, especially Agmund and Tori. He couldn't possibly be serious about this…

Gobber looked around at the disbelieving faces and said, "Really? Ya don't see what's goin' on here? Without it's real mother, that little hatchling had ta turn to the first person that gave it comfort and warmth, which was Tori."

"That…actually makes sense. A dragon hatchling will often look at the first thing it sees when hatching as its mother or father," Fishlegs reasoned. "So, without the mother Skrill, this little guy didn't have a choice but to assume Tori to be its mother."

"So…congratulations, Tori! You're finally a mom!" Blyn cried out in joy. When he got weird looks from everyone, he merely shrugged, "What? I'm really happy for her."

* * *

"L-look, I know that what Fishlegs and Gobber said m-made a lot of sense, but I'm still not your mother," Tori weakly reasoned with the hatchling. He (yes, it was confirmed that the Skrill was indeed a boy), however, was entirely tenacious in accepting Tori as his mother. He followed her everywhere and wouldn't let anyone take him more than ten feet away from her.

Currently, he was on her bed, trying to get close to her, but she would not have any part of it. She wouldn't lie that she loved babies, and baby dragons were starting to find a special place in her heart, but she had to keep one crucial fact in mind.

This hatchling came from an egg that was stolen from a mother Skrill by the Berserkers. Odds are the Skrill that attacked the camp was the mother of this hatchling and was on the hunt to retrieve her baby. Sooner or later, that Skrill would find its way here to reclaim its lost baby.

Tori did not want to be responsible for keeping a mother away from her baby. She didn't want to deny the baby the parents he needed in order to grow up to his full potential. More than that, she knew that Skrill was the one that had attacked her so long ago and she really didn't want to give that dragon another reason to hunt her down.

This was going to be a challenge, especially since the Skrill hatchling refused to give up. He always wanted to be with her, no matter how much she didn't.

From the opening that lead to the pen above them, a light flashed through followed by a gigantic clap of thunder. The hatchling's pupils suddenly shrunk and his head spikes shot up as he turned his head back and forth, trying to locate the source of that sound. Another light and another thunderclap shook the room, causing the hatchling to jump and cry out. He fell to the floor and pushed himself under the bed.

"Huh?" Tori tilted her head, suddenly thrown off by his behavior. Skrills loved storms like this, why didn't this one?

She kneeled down, looking under the bed to the most unusual sight she had ever seen. The Skrill hatchling was curled up, head under his wings and tail wrapped around him as he shook in fear…but of what?

The third clap of thunder was by far the loudest and earth-shattering of all. The hatchling whimpered, actually whimpered and tried to push itself into the wall.

"You're scared of the thunder?" She whispered in a soothing voice. "It's just a big noise. It can't hurt you."

Tori reached under, grabbing him from underneath his wings. It struggled slightly in her grasp as she pulled him out.

"Come here."

Tori lied down in bed, pulling the covers over both she and the hatchling. Against the side of her that still feared dragons, she pulled the baby Skrill close, cradling him in her arms. She stroked her hand along his head as she hummed to him.

Slowly, the little hatchling's trembling ceased. Instead of small whimpers, he purred as his pupils returned to their wide shape. He almost looked like he was smiling as he was soothed to sleep.

Tori sighed deeply, letting a frown cross her face. Comforting a baby dragon was all apart of the training, that's what she told herself. She couldn't let herself get attached to the hatchling when there was a mother, angry or not, looking for him. She would care for it until the mother came, and not a second more.

Soon enough, she felt Shoo crawl up onto her head and curl up. He was fast asleep in mere seconds unlike the baby dragon. It was a good idea, Tori thought, and closed her eyes to get some sleep as well. Another day of dragon training and another day of surprises awaited her.


End file.
